


Miss You

by lil_mistake_boi



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, I'd like to apologize right now for the angst you're about to experience, M/M, Smut, Student Frank Iero, Teacher Gerard Way, Teacher-Student Relationship, i am trash but i regret nothing, there are some untagged characters in here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-04-25 12:49:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 46,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14379009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lil_mistake_boi/pseuds/lil_mistake_boi
Summary: At seventeen, Frank thought that he had finally gotten over his childhood crush. Evidently, he was wrong.ON HOLD FOR THE TIME BEING.





	1. Act One, Scene One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to anyone who bothers to read this.
> 
> I hate myself.
> 
> I'm so glad band members don't read fanfiction.

There are lots of scary things in the world. For four-year-old Frank, the prospect of meeting new people was one such thing.

 

In the summer of 2004, amongst the sweltering heat and sweat of childhood, the house across the street was sold to the Way family. Frank, being four, might not have noticed that anything at all had changed if not for the fact that the arrival of new people had his mother absolutely worked into a frenzy of excitement. She must have been bored, cooped up all day with a young child and nothing to do, but her energy was soon diverted to finding out what she could about the prospective new neighbors from the gossip vines. Frank spent very little energy on the new neighbors, except to worry, though he wasn’t sure why he was worrying exactly. Whatever the reason, it was somewhat disruptive to his play time habits, and he did not appreciate that.

 

The Ways arrived on a Saturday. Linda Iero watched restlessly from the living room window, her young son plastered to her side, toy truck in hand and confusion on his mind, as they quickly unpacked their belongings with the help of the U-Haul guys. New children ran about the yard, chasing each other with capes slung about their necks carelessly – as has always been the way of childhood.

 

Gerard was nine and Mikey was six, Linda informed her son, though he did not ask. She said that they looked like _such_ sweet boys, and that she was sure Frank would be _such_ great friends with them. Frank was unsure and thought that his mother was being somewhat presumptive – or, at least, the four-year-old equivalent of such thoughts – but said nothing.

 

 

 

It was after a week of watching the new neighbors across the street from the living room window that Linda finally deemed it an appropriate time to greet the Ways. She was just waiting a grace period, she told Frank, who did not ask. She was being polite. She insisted as much as she took Frank by the hand and walked with him across the street.

 

Linda looked nervous as she stood before the door, shifting awkwardly as she hesitated before the doorbell. Frank wondered if she was sick or something. When she finally pressed the button, she held her breath for several seconds. Then, the door opened.

 

The lady who answered the door introduced herself as Donna Way, and she smiled with her whole face. Her eyes were kind, too, and Frank decided he liked her. Linda must have thought something similar, because almost immediately, she put on her own best smile and began talking.

 

She was Linda, and this was her son, Frankie, and would the new neighbors like to come over to the Iero residence for a “welcome to the neighborhood” dinner sometime? After all, they _were_ neighbors. It was the least they Linda could do to extend hospitality.

 

Donna smiled impossibly wider and agreed that she would be there and, of course she’d bring her sons, too. Linda had beamed at that, aiming her smile at her son by her side, who looked back at her unimpressed. This was seriously cutting into his play time.

 

 

 

On the day of the Way family’s scheduled visit to the Iero residence for dinner, Frank spent the morning cleaning his room – not that it really needed to be cleaned. Still, he arranged his stuffed animals into as uniform a line as possible for a four-year-old and he arranged his books on the shelf by thickness and height, as he couldn’t read the titles and had no better method of organization besides color. He was nervous, though he wasn’t sure why. It probably had to do with the prospect of expanding his four-year-old social circle, which had previously included his parents and two sets of grandparents, along with the occasional cousin or aunt and uncle, exclusively. Whatever the reason, he continued organizing long after his room was tidy until even his plastic toy trucks were arranged by height in the toybox.

 

At seven o’clock precisely, the Ways crossed the street and appeared on the front step. Linda opened the door after the first chime of the doorbell, as she’d been waiting anxiously for them to arrive all day, obsessively tidying up the kitchen and living room until it resembled one of those impossibly perfect houses in the furniture catalogs.

 

Frank stood behind his parents quietly as they exchanged pleasantries, observing the new people before him. He recognized Donna and her big smile and her impossibly light blonde hair. Donald, as the man beside Donna introduced himself, was a big man with dark hair and a gruff expression that could break into smile at the slightest provocation. It was a little alarming.

 

Donna maneuvered the boy hiding behind her so that he was standing in front of her, her hands planted on his shoulders so that he couldn’t bolt away.

 

“This is Gerard,” she said, smiling at the boy in her grasp. Gerard said nothing, instead opting to look at the floor.

 

“And this is Mikey,” said Donald, patting the shoulder of the smaller boy standing next to him. Mikey observed the people in the hallways keenly and without reply.

 

“This is our son, Frankie,” said Linda, stepping to the side slightly so that Frank could be plainly seen. Frank’s nerves betrayed him in his face, eyes growing large, much like a doe’s eyes when caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, and he said nothing. “Say ‘hello’, Frankie,” Linda cooed at him by means of prompting.

 

“Hi,” Frank said. His voice was hardly above a whisper, as though he wasn’t speaking at all.

 

“He’s just shy,” said Linda as she patted her son’s head lovingly. “Shall we show you around our home?”

 

The adults left the children to get acquainted, Donna and Donald acting appreciative of rooms that were impeccably like theirs across the street, and Linda and Frank Sr. pretending that they actually felt it necessary that a tour be given.

 

Frank looked over at the boys before him shyly, and they looked back at him in much the same manner.

 

Gerard was appropriately small for his age of nine, with pale skin and dark hair. He was a little chubby, too, but there was a softness around his eyes that distracted from the roundness of his cheeks and made him look uncompromisingly innocent. Mikey, on the other hand, was skinny in the way kids could easily become if they were picky eaters and heavy players. Though his palate was warm – slightly tanned skin, light brown hair, and earthy eyes – his countenance had all the chill of a blizzard. He was quiet and unblinking. For a six-year-old, he looked surprisingly like he was perpetually prepared for battle.

 

It was Mikey who spoke first. “How old are you?” he asked, and it sounded more like an accusation, his voice somehow simultaneously soft-spoken and rigid.

 

“I’m four,” Frank answered immediately. It was a reflex at this point, with how often the grown ups asked him, thinking that the fact he knew his age was somehow adorable. “How old are you?”

 

“I’m six,” said Mikey.

 

Gerard said nothing.

 

“Do you wanna play trucks?” asked Frank.

 

Mikey thought for a moment. “No. What else do you have to play?”

 

“I dunno. We can play all the things.” Frank felt nervous and eager to please, almost in the same way his mother was eager to impress. “I have lots of toys.”

 

“Do you have superheroes?” asked Mikey. Gerard perked up at this.

 

“I have a Batman guy… and a Superman guy… I have a lot of guys,” Frank told them. “My dad got me a Wonder-Lady too.”

 

Gerard’s eyes got big. “You have a Wonder Woman?”

 

Frank shrugged. He guessed that was what she was called. He didn’t really remember and he mostly just played with Batman and Superman anyway. He liked to put them in his trucks.

 

“We can play that,” Mikey decided.

 

“Okay.”

 

Frank motioned for them to follow him as he made his way towards his bedroom. He was glad he’d cleaned it, though he had no idea how quickly it would soon look as though a tornado had gone through it. He wouldn’t care then, though, when it happened, because he would be too happy, caught up in the high of a good play time with new people.

 

After a while, in the company of his new friends, he couldn’t remember why he’d ever been nervous in the first place.

 

~

 

There are plenty of complicated things in the world. For six-year-old Frank, his relationship with the Way brothers was not one of those things.

 

The first summer of the Ways’ residence across the street passed in a haze of heat and color, the days filled with imagined villains and creative heroics and the nights filled with stories of ghosts and shadows. The boys pretended to be pirates, astronauts, princes, and mutants, always in search of justice, saving the world sometimes from Frank’s backyard or sometimes from Mikey and Gerard’s backyard. They built other worlds in their heads, filling the spaces between fantasy and reality with their own sound effects and turbulence.

 

Faster than expected, summer began to die slowly with the onset of August and the prospect of school, which stole Frank’s new friends for hours of the day that he was not equipped to count. In their daytime absence, summer oozed into fall at an agonizingly slow pace, and then fall bled into winter and spring, and spring into summer once again. Those days were willed with fantasy, the air smelling of promise and magic, and the nights were dedicated to the stars, which they watched from blankets in their backyards, imagining that maybe they were also made of the same magic that built the universe.

 

Sadly, summer couldn’t last forever, and it too was swept away into August once more. This time, however, Frank was going to be a kindergartener.

 

Linda took a job in an office answering phones at the beginning of August, leaving Frank with the neighbors during the day, so caught up in the euphoria of being free from her perpetual boredom that she was somewhat unaware of Franks trepidation for his future.

 

Frank wasn’t necessarily afraid of school, but he was nervous and he not particularly sure why. It seemed like a perfectly sound fear to have, however, so he embraced it and let it consume his every waking thought as the days ticked by.

 

“School’s not so bad,” Mikey told him as the school year grew nearer. “They just teach you to count and tie your shoes and stuff.”

 

“And you get time to play every day,” Gerard added.

 

“Plus, sometimes there are cookies.” Mikey was going for the hard sell.

 

Frank still scared, but he was sold on at least going to try it out, and that was a start.

 

 

 

In the middle of August, Frank began his first trek to school in the back of his mother’s practical gray car, sandwiched between Gerard and Mikey, his Superman backpack at his feet. Linda had told him that morning that her driving him to school was just a one-time thing since it was going to make her late to work and he could take the bus anyway, but Frank got the feeling that she really wanted to be there for his first day anyway. In fact, she probably wanted to be there more than he did, though Frank was too nervous to be able to tell.

 

Frank had butterflies in his stomach that were rapidly nibbling away at his intestines as they pulled out of the suburban driveway and started speeding down the road towards the unknowns of kindergarten. What if school wasn’t anything like what Gerard and Mikey had said? What if he didn’t like school at all?

 

Gerard nudged his shoulder softly, as though he could sense Frank’s apprehension, and smiled at him reassuringly, the softness around his eyes crinkling a little as he did so. His eyes were hazel, just like Frank’s, but they were so much softer – and if someone had tried to ask Frank what that meant, he certainly wouldn’t have been able to explain it in any other way besides that it was an undeniable softness.

 

Frank felt some of the pressure ease away as Gerard smiled at him, and he vaguely wondered if Gerard had some sort of secret power to calm people down. If he did, that was a really lame power, but it was a super power nonetheless, and any form of super power was better than nothing. It still warranted a superhero persona, in Frank’s opinion.

 

By the time the car stopped in front of the elementary, Frank had decided that Gerard probably didn’t have any powers because that was the kind of thing he’d have told Mikey, and Mikey would have told Frank, so he would have already known if that was the case. Plus, Gerard would have started walking around with a superhero costume underneath his clothes, and since he hadn’t started doing that to Frank’s knowledge, he felt safe in saying that Gerard was utterly normal. He also felt silly for even thinking it, but ultimately, he was less nervous than he had been.

 

 

 

Every day, Frank, Mikey, and Gerard walked together to the bus stop and sat together, smooshed in a seat near the middle of the bus. Every day, Gerard and Mikey would find Frank after school and board the bus home with him, opting to smoosh themselves back into the same seat they took in the morning. Most days, they would all play together in the Way backyard after school, but sometimes Gerard had homework to do first, so Mikey and Frank would have to play without him for a while, often imagining that they were on a quest to save Gerard from the clutches of some evil villain until he could get finished with his homework and join the game in person. Either way, they were together every day up to dinner time, when they had to go their separate ways until the next morning, during which time they’d journey once again to the bus stop together.

 

Time passed delicately and with the texture of a blanket pulled carefully over and off one’s face. Innocence faded in much the same way.

 

Over time, Gerard stopped playing. It was a slow process, first homework preventing his heroic antics, but it soon became more than that. He was growing up, and he was tired of spending his evenings running around behind the house, pretending to shoot down tree-enemies with his laser eyes. His withdrawal was so gradual that Frank did not at first realize that he and Mikey had not only stopped pretending Gerard was captive when he didn’t want to play, but that they hadn’t bothered to consider Gerard’s old characters at all. Around the time Gerard turned eleven, he finally told the boys flatly that he didn’t want to play anymore.

 

That was that.

 

To compensate for Gerard’s withdrawal from childhood, a new ritual was adopted. On Friday nights, the boys would all sit in Gerard’s room, listening to Gerard’s music together. Gerard often drew pictures during this time, honing his natural skill, while Mikey opted to play quietly with his action figures and Frank read whatever book he needed to read that week. It wasn’t the most exciting way to spend a Friday, but Frank was okay with sitting still for awhile if it meant that he could be with his friends. He thought maybe Gerard felt a little better about growing up, too, knowing that he could still maintain his relationship with his brother – and maybe even also Frank.

 

It was there in Gerard’s room that six-year old Frank sat, reading his _Horrible Harry_ book – his mother was always telling people how Frank was just _so_ smart because he could read at a third grade level as a first grader – while Gerard drew pictures of the heroes he’d once pretended to be and Mikey imagined that he might one day wake up to discover that he now possessed the power of flight.

 

Life was good.

 

~

 

There are a lot of upsetting things in the world. To say that eight-year-old Frank’s parents getting a divorce was one of those things was an understatement of criminal proportions.

 

After school one day in November, Linda and Frank Sr. had intercepted their son before he could go over to the Way’s house to play. They said they just needed to talk to him for a minute and that Mikey would still be there when they were done. An uncomfortable feeling welled up in Frank’s stomach as they sat down across from him at the dining room table and gently broke the news to him.

 

“It’s not that we don’t love each other anymore,” Linda had said, tears in her eyes. “It’s just that we don’t love each other the way mommies and daddies should.”

 

“But that doesn’t mean we love you any less,” Frank. Sr. promised. He was not crying.

 

“We’re still a family, even if we don’t live together anymore.” Linda was having a hard time talking clearly with her lip quivering so much. The tears running down her face smeared her mascara, but she tried to smile anyway. She just looked scary.

 

“We love you so, so much, Kiddo. Nothing is going to change that.” Frank Sr. had a more convincing smile, but it was still not comforting in the slightest to his son, who was quietly watching as his world fell apart.

 

Frank fell asleep that night, huddled in a ball under his covers and wishing he could sink into himself and cease to exist.

 

 

 

“Mom said you weren’t feeling well last night, and that’s why you didn’t come over to play,” said Mikey the next morning as they made their daily walk to the bus stop. “You weren’t acting sick before that, though.” He was eyeing Frank suspiciously, as though he could catch Frank in the lie if he just stared accusingly for long enough. It had no effect on Frank, however, for two reasons: the first being that he didn’t even see the look, as he was watching the sidewalk beneath him as he walked, and the second being that he was too busy feeling nothing to feel guilty for whatever imagined slight Mikey was doing a poor job accusing him of.

 

“Sorry,” Frank replied. His voice was small, and it echoed in his own head. It sounded empty. “I just don’t feel good.” He shivered a little, unprompted, despite the lingering summer morning heat. He was cold on the inside.

 

“What’s wrong with you?” Mikey demanded, though his voice contained more worry than it did indignance. “You’re being weird.”

 

“Nothing,” Frank said, and he looked up with the intention of putting on a fake smile. The idea fell from his mind, however, when he made eye contact with Gerard’s soft, soft eyes and knew that no matter how convincing his smile was, Gerard would not be fooled.

 

 

 

It was on the walk home from school that Frank finally started to cry. He’d been holding it in since he got the news, thinking that it somehow made him tougher if he managed not to shed the tears hiding behind his eyes. All of that went out the window, however, when they neared Frank’s house and he realized that his father might not be coming home that night and, if he was, he wouldn’t kiss Linda on the cheek or go to bed in the big bedroom. He would sleep on the couch, like a visitor in the home he had built with Frank’s mother.

 

Frank was crying so hard that he couldn’t see or breathe, and he had to stop walking.

 

“Frankie,” Gerard said softly, and suddenly he was kneeling in front of Frank on the sidewalk, his long hair falling over the concern in his eyes. “What happened?”

 

Though it took a while through the hiccupping and gasping that came with crying so hard, Frank said simply, “My parents are getting a divorce.”

 

Gerard was gentle as he wiped the tears falling rapidly down Frank’s cheeks with his thumbs, holding onto the younger child’s cheeks so that he was forced to make eye contact. “Look at me, Frankie,” he instructed when Frank tried to look away. Frank did as he was told, and the calm that came from it hit him almost painfully in the chest. “Everything will be okay,” Gerard said seriously, but not without compassion. “It seems bad now, but I promise, everything will be okay.”

 

“How can you say that?” Frank said through the tears, somewhat more coherent in his forced calm. “You don’t know that for sure.”

 

“I do,” he insisted.

 

“But your parents still love each other.”

 

Frank started crying harder at that, his whole body shaking with the force of his sobs, and Gerard wrapped his arms around the younger boy as though to steady him. A moment later, a second set of arms, Mikey’s, wrapped around Frank from the back, his head resting on Frank’s shoulder as the eight-year-old sobbed into Gerard’s shirt.

 

The Ways did not let go until Frank had calmed down significantly, even though that meant they were huddling together in a hug in the middle of the sidewalk for over twenty minutes.

 

“It’s gonna be okay,” Mikey said, putting his arm around Frank’s shoulders when the boy had finally stopped crying.

 

Gerard rubbed his back soothingly as he hummed in agreement.

 

Frank didn’t really think so, but he wasn’t about to deny his friends.

 

~

 

There are plenty of difficult things in the world. For ten-year-old Frank, the most significant of these things was convincing Mikey Way of something he’d already set his mind against.

 

The boys had been right, ultimately. Things were hard at first, but Frank slowly acclimated to life with separate parents. Every Wednesday and Thursday and every other weekend, Frank spent the night at his father’s apartment. Otherwise, he stayed with his mother, which was just fine, because that meant he still got to see Gerard and Mikey, even if the amount of time he spent with them was significantly decreased. It was because time was so limited that Frank hated spending it trying to argue with Mikey. Sometimes, however, Mikey was just so _wrong_.

 

“Batman would _not_ beat Superman!” Frank insisted, arms swinging so wildly that he ran the risk of throwing the balance on his swiveling chair and falling on his ass if he kept it up.

 

“Face it,” said Mikey with no little amount of cool sass. “Batman could just, like, buy some kryptonite and stab Superman with it. Bam! Over! No contest.”

 

“Are you _insane_?” demanded Frank. “There’s no way Superman would let Batman come anywhere near him with kryptonite! He could just kill Batman with his heat vision or something from far away.”

 

“That’s where you’re wrong, Frankie.” Mikey’s tone was taking on the quality it did when he was talking to someone he considered to be less intelligent than himself. “Batman could make something to block the heat ray attacks.”

 

Frank was flabbergasted. Sure, he loved Mikey like a brother, but no brother of his would get away with being _that_ stupid.

 

“Let’s ask Gerard,” Mikey suggested, and before Frank could protest that it was a closed argument – mostly for fear that Gerard would side with Mikey – Mikey was already turning in his chair at the island counter and calling to his older brother. “Hey, Gee!”

 

Gerard’s head popped up from where it had been hidden by the back of the couch. “What?” he asked, irritated at the interruption of his show.

 

“Who would win in a fight? Batman or Superman?”

 

“What?” Gerard asked, though Frank got the impression he had heard them just fine the first time.

 

“Frankie thinks Superman could win in a fight against Batman,” Mikey informed him, making a face as though the very idea put a bad taste in his mouth. “I say that Batman could buy and sell Superman’s death.”

 

Gerard looked towards the ceiling as though he were asking God a rude question with his eyes, and then stood.

 

Frank felt heat crawl over his cheeks as Gerard stepped around the couch and made his way towards the younger boys. He was in nothing but his boxers and a loose white tee shirt. Frank couldn’t feel his toes.

 

Gerard took a deep breath, pressed his hands together, and then said, “You’re both wrong. And stupid.”

 

Frank shrank a little at the insult.

 

“Batman and Superman are friends. Bruce Wayne is one of the only people entrusted with kryptonite especially given to him by Clark Kent in the even that he loses control of his powers or turns evil or something. However, even in a situation that required Batman to kill Superman, it would take more than just Batman to do so, and vice versa. The fact of the matter is simply that they would never be in that situation in the first place, so it’s both ridiculous and pointless to imagine that one would need to kill the other. That’s why you’re both wrong. And stupid.” Gerard sounded put out by having to explain this to his little brother and little brother’s friend. Frank suspected, however, that Gerard like getting to talk about his comic books, no matter the context.

 

“Thanks, Gee,” Mikey replied, voice dripping with sarcasm. “You’re useless to me.”

 

Gerard sighed a dramatic, put-upon sigh and headed back to the couch where he had been previously employed before Frank and Mikey had so rudely interrupted. Frank watched him go, his chest burning with an unidentifiable heat.

 

Secretly, Frank was beginning to suspect he loved Gerard in a way that wasn’t as familial as his feelings for Mikey. It was a clean kind of love, though. His love was pure in the way that a child will love deeply and unselfishly. At the same time, it was desperate and ardent, possessing all the awkward and misplaced passion of someone who didn’t know what love was yet. It was confusing and easily mistaken for admiration, but secretly – so secretly that Frank dared not even think it – he was suspecting that maybe his love was romantic. Mostly, he didn’t want to think about what that implied.

 

When it finally became apparent to Mikey that Frank wasn’t listening to his arguments any longer, he elbowed his friend in the ribs to reclaim the wandering attention. For a few minutes longer, Frank continued trying to argue his side, but he had lost the original emotion that the topic provided and was no longer invested in winning without it. He consented to Mikey’s opinion, reasoning that they had better things to do on a sunny day than argue over what superhero would win in a fight.

 

Secretly, Frank stole a glance at Gerard languidly lounging on the couch before he followed Mikey outside. There really was no point in arguing, he realized, especially when his thoughts were otherwise occupied.

 

~

 

There are a significant number of ugly things in the world. At twelve years old, Frank realized definitively that Gerard Way had never been and would never be one of those things.

 

At first, it had just been a gentle preoccupation with the older boy’s every waking move. It was easier to pretend that he was thinking of Gerard as a cool older brother type that he wanted to be just like than it was to acknowledge the real root of his admiration. However, when Gerard turned sixteen, everything started to change – particularly Gerard’s body.

 

First, his sweet voice started to take on a deeper timbre. Then, Gerard sprang up a couple inches in height practically overnight, growing taller in his slightly hunched frame. All of this meant nothing to Frank, of course, and was hardly noted until the day that the soft in Gerard’s eyes took on the intensity of someone confused enough to be angry.

 

The Friday night rituals that had once been regular, and then sporadic, had all but stopped with Gerard’s sixteenth birthday. He still rode the bus with Frank and Mikey, even though they all had different destinations now, but he stopped participating in the conversation, preferring the loudest volume on his headphones to the idle chit chat of his younger brother and younger brother’s friend. It was strange for Frank to have Gerard so physically close, pressed up against his side on the small bus seat, yet so far away emotionally. One day, Gerard sat down on the seat across the aisle from Mikey and Frank, stating that it just made more sense as far as leg room went. For Frank, it almost felt like a betrayal.

 

With every new boundary Gerard put between himself and the other two boys and every month checked off on the calendar, Frank’s thoughts towards Gerard began morphing into more complicated fantasies. As he was no longer allowed to follow Gerard into his room to listen to music on Fridays, his thoughts went in his stead, lingering over Gerard’s steady hands, coated in graphite and smeared ink in every idle movement. Frank told himself he was just fascinated with how artistic Gerard was, and how skilled he was with a pencil. He could no longer lie to himself when, at twelve, he woke up sticky with sweat and something much more uncomfortable after having a very, _very_ un-PG dream about those hands and what they were capable of.

 

As he took a cold shower at 3 in the morning, attempting to wash all traces of sinful thoughts from his skin, he realized that he could no longer deny hat he felt something a little more than just platonically for Gerard.

 

At seventeen, Gerard lightened up a little, sometimes joining in conversation with Mikey and Frank the way he had long before puberty had hit him like a truck, but those occasions were few and far between, so Frank knew better than to hope for them. For that matter, Frank knew better than to hope for anything involving Gerard.

 

At the age of twelve, Frank realized that he was in love with Gerard Way and that there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. At the age of twelve, Frank cried himself to sleep frequently, the hopelessness of that love settling into his bones like an anchor tied around the ankle of a man lost at sea.

 

~

 

There are some moments in life born of passion. After losing his virginity at fourteen, Frank realized that not all moments meant to be passionate could always be that way.

 

The girl was named Jamia, and she was very nice and pretty. Frank liked her a lot – said that he loved her, even – but the time they spent together was awkward at best, their relationship built on the mutual need not to be lonely. After six months of going steady, Jamia suggested that it seemed like the logical next step to have sex. Frank agreed, and so they did it.

 

He had thought that it would be passionate and life changing, or something like that, maybe. Instead, as he thrusted his boney hips, wildly trying to find pleasure, his legs rubbing uncomfortably against the cheap plastic faux-leather of Jamia’s mother’s minivan seats, he felt nothing but awkward and slightly sticky.

 

“It won’t be like that every time,” Mikey assured him the next day when Frank told him what had happened. “You just need practice.” He smiled a slow smiled and moved his eyebrows up and down with suggestive humor.

 

Frank huffed out a laugh in response and shrugged. “I guess. I just thought it would be something more…special?”

 

Mikey nodded, but said nothing.

 

 

 

“Gerard’s coming home for Christmas,” Mikey said as they settled into their regular seats in the middle of the bus.

 

Frank forgot his previous sleepiness and perked up immediately at the mention of Gerard. “Really? When’s he getting back?”

 

Mikey shrugged noncommittally. “I dunno. Sometime during Christmas break. He just told me he was coming home soon. He didn’t say much else.”

 

Frank’s cheeks hurt from smiling so hard, and he practically glowed with excitement. He hadn’t heard much from Gerard since the elder Way had left for college, but there was an aching in his chest. He missed Gerard a lot, and often late at night.

 

“He said something about bringing home a surprise,” Mikey added, as though it were important.

 

“I wonder what it is.” This was a lie. Frank didn’t care what the surprise was. He just wanted to see Gerard again.

 

Already, Frank’s head was filled with his imagined reunion scenario in which Gerard would hug him and say that he’d missed him, or maybe even kiss his forehead.

 

Frank smiled all the way to school, while Mikey sulked uneasily as he stared at the passing scenery out the window.

 

 

 

The surprise that Gerard brought home was a person. More specifically, Gerard’s surprise was a man named Bert who went around telling people he was Gerard’s boyfriend – which maybe had something to do with the fact that that’s what Gerard also referred to him as.

 

Frank had practically been bursting with anticipation as they neared the Way house because he could see Gerard’s car all the way down the street. He had to restrain himself from sprinting the two blocks in his excitement. However, that excitement faded immediately when he and Mikey walked into the Way residence to find Gerard and Bert in the living room chatting with Donna, Bert’s hand pressed protectively over Gerard’s knee.

 

Gerard looked up and smiled as they walked through the door. “Hiya, boys,” he said. “This is Bert.”

 

“Hi,” said Bert. “I’m the boyfriend.”

 

That was all the recognition Frank got before Gerard’s attention was otherwise occupied once again with Donna’s cooing and Mikey’s questions. Frank barely heard any of it. He was focused only on Bert’s hand, which was now resting on Gerard’s thigh.

 

 

 

At home, alone in his room, Frank sat on the edge of his bed, crying quietly into his fists. He hated Bert and his stupid, slimy hair. He hated Bert’s stupid, slimy grin and those stupid, slimy fingers that squeezed Gerard’s thigh and got to touch him freely because they were dating. He hated Bert with a fiery passion, but mostly he hated that Bert got to be with Gerard in the way Frank never, ever could be.

 

Everyone was over at the Way house, fawning over Gerard’s return, as though he were the prodigal son. Donna’s questions mostly regarded his relationship, and if they were thinking about getting married, as they were obviously pretty serious. Mikey tried to steer questions towards the topic of art school, but the effort was ultimately useless. Frank couldn’t look at Gerard without seeing Bert’s stupid, slimy hands all over his body in a way that Frank’s reasonably intelligent and clean hands never could. It hurt him to watch.

 

He told his mother he was sick – a convincing lie, considering how pale he was with disappointment and envy – and left quickly and quietly, trying not draw unnecessary attention towards himself and away from the happy couple. He barely made it to the bathroom across the street before he threw up.

 

Frank thought back to the day that he told Gerard and Mikey about his parents’ divorce as he sat huddled on the bathroom floor in front of the toilet, crying his eyes out. Gerard had been thirteen at the time and Frank had been so little. He must have looked so small. It was no wonder Gerard had wiped his tears away and held him, no wonder he’d promised that things would be okay when there was no way he could rightfully know. Frank was just a small, scared kid, and Gerard must have considered Frank to be some kind of little brother type. That thought was both comforting and repulsive at the same time.

 

Frank didn’t want to be Gerard’s little brother. Frank wanted to be what Bert was to Gerard. Still, he had to take a little pride in the thought that he had a place in Gerard’s heart that maybe wasn’t as big as Mikey’s part, but was still there before Bert and would still be there long after.

 

Somehow, Frank ended up in his room, curled on the edge of his bed precariously as he shoved his fists into his eyes to make the tears stop. He was still crying when Mikey found him a little over an hour later, having been told that Frank was sick and knowing better. Mikey didn’t ask what was wrong, or even say anything. He knew and had always known. Instead, he just wrapped his arm around Frank until his friend stopped shaking.

 

Frank thought it was nice, but it wasn’t the same.

 

~

 

There will be moments in life when a person can fight no longer and ultimately must give up. Frank learned this firsthand.

 

First, he gave up on trying to date Jamia. He did not love her and never would, even if he had pretended to for his own sake. When he broke up with her, he cried to make her feel better about the situation, as though it was hurting him to have to do it. It wasn’t hurting him very much at all, in all honestly, and while he was maybe a little disappointed that he couldn’t make himself as hopelessly devoted to her as he was to Gerard, he was nowhere near as disappointed as Jamia, who had been planning a life with him in the company of her friends without his knowledge. His tears made her feel better, though, if only a little, and she was talking to new guys a few months later, mostly over the damage of her first breakup.

 

Second, Frank gave up his weekends in favor of getting a job, just as Mikey had done. It wasn’t ideal, but no work was ideal, and he had to find a way to pay his phone bill somehow. He got a job babysitting every Sunday, which was abundantly lame but sufficient in paying the necessary bills. When he turned sixteen, he got another job stocking shelves and working the cash register in the local supermarket, which allowed him more money to put into savings for college and fill up his gas tank.

 

Thirdly and lastly, but perhaps with the most difficulty, Frank gave up on Gerard. It wasn’t easy. Actually, it was rather painful. It was necessary, nonetheless, no matter how hard.

 

Gerard did not seek Frank out during that Christmas break. He was too preoccupied to worry after the health of an otherwise fit teenage boy who could take care of himself. It bothered Frank a lot, but he couldn’t risk going over to see Gerard because then he’d have to see Bert, and then he’d just get sick to his stomach all over again. Frank saw no more of Gerard that Christmas break besides the first two days he’d attempted. Gerard left five days later, Bert in the passenger seat and all of Frank’s late-night thoughts in the trunk.

 

Gerard didn’t come home for summer vacation, instead opting to work over the summer in the town where his college was located. When he did come home, which was rarely, he always brought Bert. Frank made sure he was staying with his dad at those times.

 

Gerard did not come home for the next Christmas break. He and Bert had had a horrible, nasty break up that resulted in his needing to find a new place of residence, so he was staying where he was to sort out his living situation and recover at a friend’s house, away from the loving but ridiculously prying eyes of his mother.

 

That summer break yielded a few very sporadic visits from Gerard. Frank was too scared to see him, but he found that Gerard cold be easily avoided by not actively seeking him out. He holed up in his room for the duration of Gerard’s stays that summer.

 

Christmas break once again yielded no Gerard, because he’d opted to take that time to travel abroad. Frank was relieved, but unsurprised.

 

The most disappointing part of all of that was simply that there was never any indication that Gerard asked about him. Linda never relayed any conversation related to him, and she would have had there been any. Frank had been wrong. Maybe Gerard had never cared about him and only ever considered him some annoying kid that followed his little brother around. That’s probably what hurt the most.

 

At sixteen, Frank believed he had finally relieved himself of the pain of his childhood crush. At sixteen, with Gerard so busy, Frank had very few opportunities to prove this. In fact, the opportunity would not arise until his senior year of high school, when he was seventeen, and utterly convinced that he would never have to prove otherwise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a comment! I'm a slut for constructive criticism.


	2. Act One, Scene Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to change the intended chapter number from six to eight. Unfortunately, I have too much idea and not enough space.

The world is an ugly place as a matter of fact, but this ugliness has been known to vary. For example, were Frank soaking in the sun on a beach somewhere, a cool breeze caressing his skin as his worries blew away into oblivion, the world might seem more on par with the not-as-ugly ugly step sister from _Cinderella_. However, at 6:50 in the morning on the first day of school, alarm clock blaring directly into his ear as the last shreds of dreams were ripped away from his head, the world looked a lot like the rotting-yet-living corpses from the human fertilizer episode of _Hannibal_ – that is to say, ugly as fuck and downright disturbing.

 

It took every ounce of willpower Frank possessed to haul himself out of bed and rub the crusted sleep from his eyes.

 

Frank had some issues locating a semi-clean shirt and a pair of pants without too many holes in them, as he was a human disaster, but he eventually managed. At 7:02, he stumbled into the bathroom to brush his teeth and splash some water over his face. He was running a little bit behind, so he didn’t bother shaving, knowing full and well that the world would go on despite his stubble. He rubbed some deodorant on under his shirt before slinging his backpack over his shoulders, going downstairs to kiss his mother on the cheek, and then heading out towards the bus stop. He was about as ready as he could ever be to face the world.

 

 

 

“That’s fucking stupid. What do you think, Frank?”

 

Frank started in surprise as his left headphone was suddenly separated from his ear, and he was instinctively livid at the intrusion. He glared a the only possible perpetrator, which happened to be the kid who had started sitting next to him on the bus the year before. His name was like Brandon or something.

 

“What do you want?” Frank demanded. He wasn’t trying to conceal his anger, which was more of a heavy impatience than an actual temper.

 

“Ryan said he thinks Batman never should have been able to defeat Superman in that movie with Ben Affleck. Obviously, he’s a fucking moron, but he doesn’t believe me, so I asked what you thought.” The kid – Brandon or something – smiled at Frank innocently, as though he was completely unaware that he’d just committed and ear bud crime and was quite possibly the last person on the face of the earth that Frank wanted to talk to at that moment.

 

“I think you’re both wrong and that the movie industry was looking for drama,” Frank huffed, his tone dark from his residual anger at the kid’s interruption. “They never should have been in that situation in the first place. Batman and Superman are supposed to be friends.” Frank plucked his missing ear bud from the kid’s hand politely, but with what he hoped looked like indignation. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

 

Frank did not wait to see if he was excused or not before replacing his ear bud and glaring out the window, just as he’d done every morning on the way to school since Mikey had graduated.

 

 

 

There was a paper taped to Frank’s locker when he arrived at school that morning. It was a copy of his schedule with a note hastily scrawled on the bottom, most likely by the guidance counselor. “Slight schedule change,” it said.

 

Frank looked over the class list briefly and then pulled the schedule he’d been mailed out of his bag for a comparison. The courses were all the same. Maybe there was some kind of mistake. Whatever.

 

Frank ripped the thing from his locker and shoved it into his bag along with the original copy. He had shit to do that didn’t involve clerical errors.

 

 

 

The first day of school was always dedicated to familiarizing the student body with the contents of the student handbook. That usually entailed reading _directly from the fucking book_ for a certain number of pages each class period, effectively wasting everyone’s time. It was torture, and it took up most of each class period. This year, however, the administration decided to make the whole ordeal somewhat more bearable by showing videos – one for each class period – of some kids listing off the important stuff contained in the handbook. It took less time, but it was super lame. No kid was that naturally peppy when talking about dress code.

 

When the time came for eighth hour, Frank was just about ready to pass out from boredom. It had been nothing but syllabuses and rules all day. He just wanted to get the fuck out of there and maybe smoke a cigarette before his mom got home.

 

Frank was the last to arrive in class, not having the energy to walk quickly anywhere, and he took the last available seat in the back of the room next to a kid he’d never talked to with reddish hair and a lip ring. Frank didn’t know his name, but he’d seen him around the hallways before. He didn’t care enough to ask.

 

“Hello, everyone.”

 

Frank’s head snapped in the direction of the voice that had just spoken. It couldn’t be. No fucking way.

 

“My name is Mr. Way,” Gerard said, standing in front of the class in dress pants, a button-up shirt, and a tie as though he were an actual adult. “For those of you who got the notice on your lockers this morning and don’t already know, this class was originally going to be taught by Mrs. Stephan. Unfortunately, she had to resign at the last minute due to family emergency.”

 

Frank felt like a fucking idiot. The schedule change wasn’t in his classes. It was in his teachers. _Why didn’t he check the teachers?_ Then he would have known that he would be seeing Gerard eighth hour and would have had enough time to properly panic about it.

 

Gerard looked a lot different, but he was still undeniably Gerard in essence, from the swish in his hips when he walked to the way his hands moved everywhere about him when he talked. He’d changed his hair since Frank had last seen him, which was probably something like three years prior. Instead of the black it had been, it was now a bright, ostentatious shade of red. He looked like he’d lost weight, too.

 

For all the physical change, he still wasn’t any more of Frank’s Gerard than he had been three years before, though. That’s how Frank had come to think of the Gerard of his childhood – _his_ – because it was only in his thoughts that he ever had anything sort of like a claim on the elder Way brother.

 

Thoughts of claiming made Frank think of commitment, which made him think of Gerard’s prior commitments, which made him think of Bert and his stupid, slimy fingers. All of that made Frank sick to his stomach and effectively snapped him out of his reverie.

 

When Frank was once again among reality, he found that he’d miss the entirety of the handbook video and part of Gerard’s monologue.

 

“Since you were all required to ace two years of preliminary art courses to even qualify for this class, I’m not going to baby you. Every three weeks, I’ll assign a new subject for you to represent in whatever medium you see fit. Your only requirement is that you thoroughly illustrate the subject matter and use your class time wisely. You’ll also be given an additional two weeks at home to work on your projects, as well, but I’ll dock points off the finished project if I see you wasting time in class.”

 

Gerard took a stack of papers from his desk, divided it in two, and handed the smaller stacks to people in the front desks to be passed backwards, and then asked if there were any questions. Frank was having a hard time breathing, let alone listening to other people ask dumb ass questions about the course work. He was startled when the kid next to him handed him a syllabus, and he ignored the strange look he was given as a result.

 

Why hadn’t his mom said something? Did she know? Why hadn’t Mikey said something? He’d literally been texting Mikey all day in between classes.

 

When the bell rang, Frank wasted no time in grabbing his shit and bolting out of his seat, desperate to get away from whatever the fuck was going on.

 

 

 

When Mikey answered the phone after the third ring, Frank didn’t bother with greetings, instead opting to get right to the point of the matter.

 

“What the _fuck_ , Mikey?”

 

The other end of the phone was silent for a moment, as though registering what was said before responding, “Hello to you, too.”

 

Frank dug his shoes into the grass in his backyard, head resting against his backpack and cigarette smoking between his fingers.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me he got a job at the school? Frank asked, ignoring his friend’s sarcasm.

 

“Who got a job at the school?” Mikey was deadpan, but Frank knew he must be joking. Frank was too irritated to find it funny.

 

“Don’t fuck with me,” he spat. “You know I’m talking about Gerard.”

 

“Oooooh…” Mikey said without inflection of any kind because he was truly an asshole at heart. “Gerard. Right.”

 

“Mikey, what the fuck.” This was less of a question and more of a blanket statement. What the fuck was right. What the fuck, indeed.

 

“I guess it just slipped my mind. Sorry.” Mikey did not sound sorry at all.

 

Frank took a long drag from his cigarette and held the smoke in his lungs for a long time, only releasing it roughly through his nose when he needed to breathe again. “Did it also slip your mind that I hate his fucking guts?”

 

“You don’t hate his guts.”

 

“How the fuck would you know how I feel about his guts? I’m really pissed off right now, Mikey.”

 

“And what do you want me to do about that? You’re the one with the issue. You’re the one who needs to deal with it.”

 

Frank took another drag from the cigarette, watching as the white part of the stick burned orange and shrank, revealing ash in it’s wake. Usually, smoking calmed him down. It wasn’t doing much at that particular moment besides hindering his breathing.

 

“I’ve known you since you were four, Frank. That’s how I know you need to grow the fuck up and get over whatever problem you have with my brother, ‘cause like it or not, if you’re in my life you’ll have to see him at some point.” Mikey didn’t sound worked up, but the fact that he was using Frank’s given name instead of calling him “Frankie”  like he had always done was indicative of a greater agitation.

 

“Thanks a fuck ton, Mikey,” Frank said bitterly as he stubbed his cigarette out into the grass. “Bye.”

 

“Bye.”

 

~

 

“Unfortunately, your schedule is pretty much locked in,” said the guidance counselor. She was a fair skinned blonde lady pushing her sixties, but the stress she wore in her brow made her look older. “I can’t change your eighth hour class.”

 

“What do you mean?” Frank asked. “There isn’t anything I can take instead?”

 

“All of the classes offered eighth hour are for underclassman and specialty area classes. You don’t have any of the prerequisites to take the other specialty area classes, and you’ve already taken all the underclassman courses. I can’t make you a teacher’s aide, either, because all the teacher’s aides need to be decided a year in advance. I’m sorry, Frank.”

 

Frank forced a smile. “It’s fine,” he said. “I’ll just deal with it.”

 

 

 

“Your first project, which you’ll be starting next week, is to depict happiness,” Gerard told the class. He was sitting cross-legged on top of an unoccupied desk in the front of the classroom, casually looking over the students as though they were part of the dominion over which he ruled. “I know that sounds kind of lame, but I really want to get to know each of you. As per standard, you’ll have three weeks in class and two weeks at home to finish your project before it’s due.”

 

Gerard stood from his perch and walked with a lazy but deliberate gate towards the guy Frank had been sitting next to in class the day before.

 

“What does happiness mean to you?” Gerard asked him with a smile. “Like, true, incandescent happiness.”

 

The kid looked up at the instructor slowly, reddish hair falling into his eyes. He thought for a good ten seconds before replying, “I don’t know, Sir.”

 

“You don’t know what makes you happy?”

 

The kid shook his head and looked back to the surface of the table he was sitting at.

 

If Frank were smart, he’d have followed the kid’s example and looked away when he still had the chance. However, Frank was not smart. In fact, Frank was a huge fucking idiot, because when Gerard turned to locate his next victim, he made direct eye contact with Frank’s dumb ass.

 

“What about you?” he asked Frank. “What makes you happy?”

 

Frank felt something in his chest tighten as he continued to look directly at Gerard and his stupid red hair. It was like his heart was holding his breath, or something stupid like that.

 

“I dunno about happiness,” Frank said. “But I get a real kick out of being put on the spot.”

 

There was quiet laughter around the room, and Gerard broke eye contact to observe it long enough that Frank could look down and away from the person who had previously held his attention.

 

“I guess I have a different perspective on happiness,” Gerard said. “I’m constantly seeking after the things that bring me joy, so I’m always aware of them. Quick! Someone ask me what makes me happy!”

 

A girl sitting behind Frank immediately replied, “What makes you happy, Mr. Way?” Frank immediately cataloged her face in his head so that he would always recognize her as a fucking nerd.

 

“Thank you for asking.” Gerard walked into the aisle between the rows of table. “Comic books make me happy. Freshly brewed coffee makes me happy. The sound rain makes when it hits the roof makes me happy.” Gerard stepped to the front of the room and took a photograph from his desk to show the class. “My family makes me happy,” he said. Then, he replaced the picture on his desk and sat back down on the front table.

 

“Pick something that makes you happy – anything just short of porn and drugs – and use your selected medium to convey that feeling. I want to be able to feel exactly what you were feeling when I look at it. Does everyone understand?”

 

There was a mumbled consensus in the affirmative.

 

“Excellent,” Gerard said. “Tomorrow, we’ll be watching a couple of really cool technique videos to kill some time. However, that just means you need to be all the more prepared to make art on Monday.”

 

The bell rang just as Gerard finished his sentence, and Frank hauled ass out of there so fast that his form might have blurred a little with the speed.

 

~

 

The third day of the traditional three-day back-to-school week was filled with subtle dread. The only time Frank spent not worrying about eighth hour was the time that he was in eighth hour and could be actively panicking inside of his head. At least he didn’t have to worry about the prospect of social interaction with Gerard, since they were just watching a video, but the very fact that the two were present in the same room was enough to set him on the edge of his seat.

 

He smoked two cigarettes when he got home to calm himself down, but they effectively did nothing, and Frank was left to stoop in his discomfort until his mother came home and found him lying in the grass in the backyard.

 

Unfortunately, if Frank thought he could have a peaceful weekend without having to worry about Gerard, he was dead wrong. As soon as he sat down at the dinner table with his plate and before he could even take a bite of the green bean on his fork, his mother was asking, “Why didn’t you tell me Gerard got a job at your school?”

 

Frank wanted to scream. Couldn’t that fucker just leave him alone?

 

“I thought you already knew,” Frank replied, and then he started shoveling the food in his mouth in an attempt to deter conversation. He was running on the hope that his mother wouldn’t make him talk with his mouth full.

 

He was wrong again.

 

“That boy never tells anybody anything,” said Linda with a huff. “I was talking to Donna this morning. She told me she didn’t even know he was coming back to town until he was already moved in.”

 

Frank looked at his mother and decided not to make a bitter comment. She looked too tired to deal with his angst, hair falling in sporadic strands about her face, which was accessorized with dark circles under her eyes. There was no point in concerning her with his inner conflict.

 

He just nodded and let the subject drop.

 

~

 

The first studio assignment – “illustrate happiness” – was somewhat difficult, mostly because Frank wasn’t a happy person. The brightest part of his life was his daily text conversations with Mikey, but texting wasn’t an art medium. Sure, he could have painted a picture of his phone, but Frank wasn’t that fucking lame.

 

It had never really occurred to Frank how unhappy he was. He lived with his mother full time only because she worked a lot and that meant he got to be by himself most of the time, which he liked. His dad was busy, too. If he wanted to see Frank Sr., he had to basically set up an appointment. Frank didn’t have any friends besides Mikey, either. In fact, he spent most of his time trying to avoid talking to other people.

 

As he stared blankly at the canvas before him, he had the sinking suspicion that he was going to fail his first project.

 

~

 

The following two weeks were slow and hot, but not so much in the weather as inside of Frank’s own body. He felt like he was boiling within himself as he waited anxiously for the promised three-day weekend that came with Labor Day.

 

Frank had just about reached his limit from dealing with that Brandon kid who kept trying to talk his ear off on the bus every morning and carefully maneuvering himself around Gerard during eighth hour to prevent any unnecessary contact. It was exhausting.

 

All he wanted was to lay in bed and watch shitty horror movies all weekend, cramming junk food into his face as he tried his best to forget he existed. Linda, however, had other ideas.

 

“A few of my coworkers are throwing a little party for Labor Day,” she said. “I want you to come with me.”

 

Frank was about to come up with an excuse as to why he could do no such thing, but Linda cut him off with a look that effectively conveyed, “Don’t even bother. You’re not getting out of this.”

 

~

 

On Tuesday, Frank made the ultimate blunder. Maybe he was thrown off by the fact that he hadn’t gotten to properly recover over the three-day weekend because of bullshit social obligations. Maybe he was just stupid. Whatever the reason, he allowed himself to get so focused on his art project that he didn’t realize how close it was to the end of class until the bell rang and his dumb ass hadn’t even started to clean up. He still needed to put up his project and wash the paint trays. He said a silent prayer to anyone who would listen as he slung his bag over his shoulder and put his project in the cabinet, pleading with the universe that Gerard wouldn’t try to talk to him.

 

Evidently, the universe has a sense of humor.

 

“Are you avoiding me?”

 

Frank froze. Gerard was talking to him. Of course, Gerard was talking to him. There was no one else in the room. Of fucking course.

 

“Uh, no,” Frank said simply, but he didn’t make eye contact, instead focusing on his cleaning obligations.

 

There was an oppressive silence in the room as Frank carried his paint tray and brushes to the sink and turned on the water, allowing it to wash away the loose paint. He hoped that maybe Gerard would just let the subject drop, but the elder Way had other ideas.

 

“Oh,” he mumbled. Then, after a few more seconds of silence, he said, “You just haven’t really spoken to me since I got back.”

 

“What do you want me to say?” It was all Frank could do to keep his voice even, the boiling sensation he’d been feeling for the passed few weeks starting to grow. He didn’t want to talk. Why couldn’t Gerard just leave him alone?

 

“How about, ‘hi? Or something.”

 

“Hi.”

 

Frank ran the water over the brush bristles, separating them with his fingers so that the current could remove the paint that had accumulated at the base. He pretended that this required an immense amount of concentration. Really, he just didn’t want to look at that stupid, expectant face.

 

“I just… I thought it would be a nice surprise. That you’d get to see me every day, I mean,” Gerard continued.

 

Frank didn’t respond, acting as though he were consumed with scrubbing the dried paint from the trays. It was after a full minute of silence that Gerard added, “I thought you’d be happy to see me.”

 

The heat within Frank’s body reached volcanic levels. He dropped the tray into the sink suddenly, looking to where Gerard was seated on a nearby table, self-consciously hunched in on himself, and felt a glare take over his face. How fucking _dare_ he look hurt?

 

“Let me ask you this, _Gerard_ ,” Frank spat, enjoying the surprise that came over the elder Way’s face at the use of his given name. “What made you think I’d be happy to see you? Seriously? What gave you that idea?” The dam had broken, and years of anger and sadness and resentment came flooding out in a torrent of harsh tone and explosive heat. “I haven’t spoken to you in something like three years, and you hadn’t exactly attempted a real conversation any time before that. For me to avoid you, you’d have to have actively sought me out at some point. But you didn’t. We both know you fucking didn’t.”

 

Frank dropped his paint tray and stormed out of the room, not bothering to turn off the water.

 

There was a power in the way he left, having said what he needed to say and managing not to cry the angry tears that were welling up behind his eyes. He had appeared strong. Unfortunately, any illusion of strength dissipated as soon as Gerard called his name and started after him. At that moment, pride be damned – Frank started running, turning down the nearest hallway and ducking into the first room he saw.

 

A room full of people stared back at him.

 

At the desk in the front of the room sat a sturdy woman with dark skin and coiled hair whom Frank recognized as Mrs. Carlisle, one of the freshman English teachers. She appraised him in his disheveled, out of breath state, and raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you here for the Drama Club meeting?” she asked. By her tone of voice, it sounded as though she thought he was in the wrong place. She wasn’t totally incorrect in that assumption.

 

Frank thought of Gerard, who was somewhere out in the hallway. If he thought Frank had been avoiding him before, he had no idea what lengths Frank was willing to. The elder Way brother hadn’t seen anything yet.

 

“Yeah, sorry,” Frank lied. “I thought I was going to be late.”

 

“The meeting hasn’t even started yet.”

 

“I guess I got the time mixed up.”

 

Mrs. Carlisle looked suspicious, as though Frank were secretly up to something dastardly. It was somewhat offensive, but then Frank imagined he probably looked a bit like trouble with his hair tousled and his face red from the residual effects of his anger.

 

“Just take a seat,” she finally said.

 

Frank did as he was told. In the back of the room, the kid who usually sat by Frank on the bus – Brandon or something – was practically vibrating in his seat with excitement. Frank sat down in the desk beside him reluctantly, but only because he didn’t know anyone else in the room and was trying to pretend he was supposed to be there.

 

“You’re joining Drama Club? Are you going to be in the play?” the kid asked in a loud whisper, his words blurring together in excitement. “Did you know it’s a musical? Can you sing?”

 

“Uh, I guess,” Frank said, trying to give a blanket answer to the rapid-fire questions. He doubted he’d actually do the play, but the least he could do was pretend if he was going to hide amongst the theater geeks until he was sure Gerard was gone.

 

Brandon-or-something practically squealed. “Oh my god!” he said. “I didn’t know you liked theater!”

 

Frank stared at the surface of the desk he was sitting in, thoroughly regretting his seating choice.

 

As the minutes ticked by and the last of the theater geeks trickled in, Mrs. Carlisle stood and addressed the room. “Hello, everyone, and welcome to our Drama Club meeting,” she said. “For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Mrs. Carlisle, and I teach freshman English. As many of you know, Mrs. Stephan has resigned due to tragedy in the family, so I’ve taken over the Drama Club in her absence.” She grabbed a stack of booklets from her desk and began to pass them out. “Now, I don’t know how Mrs. Stephan conducted her auditions, but my process will be fairly simple. I will assign you into groups of three people each to perform a scene from this practice script for me. Those who are not performing will wait in the hall. You’ll have until Friday to familiarize yourself with your lines. I don’t expect you to have the scene memorized, but ideally, you should be able to perform your character with a certain amount of creativity and uniqueness. Any questions?”

 

“The play is going to be a musical, right?” asked Brandon-or-something. “I heard it was going to be a musical.”

 

Mrs. Carlisle smiled. “Yes, we’re doing a musical. However, I’m still working on getting the musical I had in mind approved by the administration, so until all of that is arranged, I’m not telling you what play we’re doing. Any other questions?”

 

There were no other questions.

 

“Alright, then I’ll assign your groups.”

 

As it turns out, Brandon-or-something was actually named Brendon, and Frank only learned this when they were put in the same group together, along with Brendon’s friend Ryan, who followed him like a shadow.

 

Frank left the meeting with Brendon and Ryan with the intention of using them as social shields if Gerard tried to talk to him again. The boys didn’t seem to notice the way Frank nervously looked around the hallways as they exited the building, Brendon too busy chirping away in excitement about the play and Ryan too preoccupied with following every word out of Brendon’s mouth. Frank didn’t even bother tuning into the conversation until Brendon asked him a direct question.

 

“So, are we going to meet up and run lines together?” He was looking at Frank with eyes so big, they were practically the size of the moon.

 

“I was kinda thinking of just reading through them by myself. You know. To, like, develop the character and stuff. By myself.” It wasn’t his best lie, but it was all he could think of off the top of his head. He wasn’t really planning on going to the audition.

 

“Oh,” said Brendon, and he didn’t hide the dejection in his voice. “Alright.”

 

Frank felt bad for letting the poor kid down, but not guilty enough to give in.

 

~

 

It was funny, the way Gerard sidestepped Frank during class. It was like he was trying to avoid a land mine located somewhere within a five-foot radius of Frank’s table that could somehow be set off if he so much as looked at the neighbor boy the wrong way. Maybe that was true. After all, there was still an uncomfortable heat in the pit of Frank’s stomach where his body had first held his unrequited love and eventually his insurmountable disappointment.

 

Frank worked on his project diligently, focused intently on the most minute brush strokes. He could pretend this was because he didn’t want to give Gerard an excuse to dock points, but mostly it was because he didn’t have to worry about unwitting eye contact if his face was barely three inches from the canvas.

 

It was Friday before Gerard finally spoke to Frank again. “Mr. Iero,” he said. Frank looked up slowly, expression carefully blank as he looked to his instructor. “Could you please stay after class?”

 

There was panic in Frank’s chest as he fought to keep his expression even. He didn’t want to stay after class. He didn’t want to talk. He wanted to move the fuck on and be left alone. Why couldn’t this asshole just leave him alone?

 

“I can’t,” Frank said. “I, uh… I have auditions. For the play. You know, right after school.”

 

“I’m sure you can be a few minutes late.”

 

“I’d rather not risk it. I’m, like… I really wanna get a good part. Raincheck.”

 

Frank had no intention of actually making good on that raincheck, but the empty promise was enough that Gerard agreed.

 

“Alright,” he said, nodding. “Raincheck.”

 

 

 

Frank hadn’t actually read over the script because he’d planned on ditching the audition. He might have still ditched if not for the fact that Gerard stood in the doorway as the students filed out and watched as Frank made his way to Mrs. Carlisle’s classroom. It was irritating, but whatever. Frank would just get his audition over with and go home. It was as simple as that.

 

As the students filed into the classroom, Frank skimmed his lines. He wasn’t expected to have them memorized, which was good, and his reading comprehension was decent. He wasn’t too worried.

 

Brendon sat next to Frank with all his usual vivacity and enthusiasm, smiling wider than the Cheshire cat.

 

“Ryan didn’t think you’d show,” he said. “I knew you would, though.”

 

“Yeah?” Frank scratched at the hair on his neck, guilt ghosting around his heart.

 

“Sure! I mean, it was just a hunch, but I was really hoping you’d try out.”

 

“Why?”

 

A soft redness spread over Brendon’s cheeks and his smile faltered for a small fraction of a second. “I just… I thought you’d enjoy it.” He quickly turned his body away from Frank and towards Ryan, embarrassed.

 

Oh. Okay. Brendon had a thing for Frank. That explained a lot.

 

“Hello, again. Welcome to all of you who came to audition,” Mrs. Carlisle said, standing in the front of the room to address the twenty or so kids who showed up. She seemed to notice Frank, and she almost looked surprised that he’d shown up.

 

Damn people and their reasonable expectations of his flakiness.

 

“Who would like to go first?”

 

Frank shot his hand up. He was eager to just get the whole thing over with.

 

Mrs. Carlisle appraised him with scrutiny. “Alright, Frank’s group can go first,” she said. “If everyone else would be so kind as to wait in the hallway, please and thank you.”

 

 

 

Frank’s read-through wasn’t the best in history, but he wasn’t bad. He had good inflection and he didn’t stumble over his words, and that was the most he had expected after only skimming through his lines once before performing them.

 

Brendon, true to form, had really put his heart and soul into every line, annunciating perfectly and adding depth to lines that had just seemed to be filler to Frank. He was good, and obviously pining for a lead role. Frank kind of hoped he got one.

 

Ryan had been nervous and that much was obvious from the very second he opened his mouth. He read his lines rigidly, holding his booklet close to his body as he stood stiffly off to the side. Frank felt a little bad for him. The poor kid looked terrified.

 

When they finished their scene, Mrs. Carlisle smiled widely at them. “Thank you,” she said. “Call backs will be announced at Monday’s meeting. I hope to see you all there.”

 

She gave another pointed look at Frank as he walked out of the room, but he said nothing and hauled ass out of there.

 

 

 

Frank had almost made it out of the building without incident, Brendon and Ryan walking by his side, when a voice called out to him from behind.

 

“Frank?” It was Gerard. Of fucking course it was Gerard. Frank would recognize that voice anywhere, even if he didn’t bother to turn around and check. “Can we talk?”

 

Frozen in his spot and unwilling to turn around, Frank was about to say that he couldn’t when Brendon chimed in.

 

“Don’t worry,” said Brendon with a smile. “We’ll wait for you outside.”

 

“Perfect,” Gerard said, not allowing Frank time to come up with an excuse. “It’ll just take a minute.”

 

“You don’t have to wait for me,” Frank muttered to Brendon as he reluctantly turned to face the elder Way brother. He was really starting to get sick of that kid. “It’s fine.”

 

“It’ll only take a minute,” Gerard repeated. He was smiling, but it looked forced. His soft eyes were nervous.

 

 

 

“What do you want?” Frank demanded, arms folded over his chest protectively as he leaned against one of the back-row tables.

 

Gerard closed the door and looked towards Frank. He was fidgeting with some kind of ring on his thumb, twisting it around as he struggled to make eye contact. “I just wanted to talk. You know, maybe explain myself.”

 

Frank said nothing, his silence expectant.

 

Gerard sighed heavily and rubbed his face. “Look,” he began. “Before… when I was… I wasn’t really in a good place.”

 

Frank could feel his eyes rolling of their own accord. That was the best he had? “Not a good place”? What a fucking cop out.

 

“My relationship with Bert was pretty much all-consuming. We were just, like, so invested in each other that nobody else existed.” He was still staring at the ring on his thumb, turning it and moving it up and down over his flesh with nervous energy. “When we broke up, I took a lot of time to find myself. I just… It’s not like I ever meant to shut you out. I was in a bad place.” Gerard finally looked up, eyes as soft as Frank’s first day of kindergarten. “It doesn’t change the fact that you’re family and that I care about you.”

 

Frank blinked incredulously, staring with an expression that openly said, “That’s such complete and utter bullshit.”

 

Fuck him and those stupid, soft eyes.

 

“Did you somehow forget about how often I called when you left for college, and that you never answered? Did you somehow misplace a hundred texts from me, missing you and wishing you’d just say anything?” Frank’s face was hot, and his eyes burned. “You can’t blame all your shit on being in a bad place post-breakup. You didn’t even start dating Bert until your late in your first year of college and you’d already been ignoring me before that.”

 

Gerard took a step forward, like he might reach out, but Frank clumsily wrenched himself away from where he’d been sitting, determined not to let him make contact.

 

“I’m not your family,” Frank said darkly, voice thick with emotions he was ashamed to possess in the first place. “I’m not your parents and I’m not your little brother. Those are people you actually care about. I’m just the kid next door that followed you around like a puppy. That’s all I’ve ever been.”

 

A pitying look came over Gerard’s face, and Frank had half a mind to slap it off until he realized that his own face was wet. Frank was crying. He had actually started crying. What was he? A five-year-old?

 

Frank made to storm off, but Gerard blocked his path, and when he tried to push past, the elder Way grabbed him by the shoulders, turning Frank so that they were facing each other. Those soft, soft eyes made Frank the tears fall faster and in greater volume. He felt like he was eight years old all over again.

 

“Frankie,” Gerard murmured desperately, and then he was cupping Frank’s face the way he always used to when they were growing up and the neighbor boy would cry, wiping the tears with his thumbs. “Look at me.”

 

Frank ripped himself away from the overwhelming gentleness, the hurt that had been festering within him for years pouring down his face. “Don’t fucking touch me!” His voice was cracked and raw. “I’m not a fucking child.”

 

“Uh, hey,” said a voice from the doorway.

 

Frank roughly scrubbed his face and tried to pull himself together as the kid from his art class with the reddish hair and the lip ring stepped into the room.

 

“I just…” he mumbled. “I thought, uh, that I was giving you a ride, Frank. Didn’t you want me to, like, give you a ride home?”

 

The guy was trying to bail him out. Thank God.

 

“Yeah,” Frank replied, snatching his bag from where he had shed it on the floor. He walked quickly passed the kid with the reddish hair and into the hallway, hardly stopping to throw a bitter, “Goodbye, Mr. Way,” over his shoulder as he made his escape.

 

 

 

The guy’s name was Bob and he only thing he said on the ride back to Frank’s place besides his initial introduction was, “Can you give me directions to your place?” Other than Frank’s occasional pointers, they rode in silence. Frank appreciated as much.

 

Bob drove a white Corolla, probably from around the year Frank was born, with shedding tan seats and a low ceiling. It was a piece of shit, the fabric on the interior shredded and falling off and the steering wheel weirdly sticky. It smelled odd, too, but Frank got the feeling it was well-loved. There were stickers stuck to the dashboard, some depicting guitars and drums and the like, and others with band symbols on them. Frank liked the Misfits one the best and had to wonder where Bob had found it – but no questions were asked for fear of breaking the careful silence.

 

It wasn’t until the car pulled up to the curb in front of Frank’s house that Bob finally spoke.

 

“Look,” he began, shutting off the engine. “I know we’re not really, uh… friends.” He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel awkwardly. “But, um… if Mr. Way is being, uh, _inappropriate_ … then maybe you should tell someone.”

 

“He wasn’t,” Frank corrected quickly. He might have hated Gerard and his stupid, soft eyes, but he wasn’t about to ruin his reputation out of spite. “I’ve known him since I was four. He always does that when I cry.” Then, after he realized his mistake, he verbally corrected, “He always used to do that.”

 

Bob didn’t seem convinced, and he stared at the steering wheel hard, like he was deciding something.

 

“Are you sure?” he asked. He looked Frank in the eyes, openly wary. “Because, like, if you’re uncomfortable-“

 

“I’m sure. Thanks for the save, though. And the ride home. I owe you one.”

 

Bob looked like he didn’t know what to do – like he had half a mind to stop Frank from getting out of his car and remaining in what he must have considered denial over the situation. He probably thought Frank was too ashamed to admit that he’d been sexually assaulted or something. Frank almost wished he didn’t have a conscience so that he could play along and get Gerard fired. Unfortunately, he did have a conscience. Plus, at the very least, he didn’t want Mikey to be mad at him.

 

“I’ll see you Monday,” Frank said as he got out of Bob’s car. “Thanks again for the ride.”

 

Bob nodded, still looking unsure, but pulled away from the curb and out of Frank’s business just the same.

 

If only Frank didn’t have a conscience. If only.

 

~

 

At midnight on Sunday night – Monday morning – Frank awoke to the alarm he’d set and immediately called Mikey, who answered on the fourth ring.

 

“What?” His voice was rough from sleep and he sounded irritated.

 

Frank was undeterred.

 

“ _Happy birthday to you_ ,” he crooned, a small smile on his lips as he did so. “ _Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Mikey. Happy birthday to you_.”

 

Mikey was quiet for a couple of seconds before sighing and muttering, “Yeah, yeah. It’s my birthday. Thanks.”

 

“Any time, Mikeyway.”

 

“Goodnight.”

 

“Goodnight.”

 

 

 

“Frank, can I talk to you for a moment?” Mrs. Carlisle asked as Frank was making his way to lunch. “It’ll only take a moment of your time.”

 

Frank was instantly nervous, immediately thinking back to everything he could have possibly done to get himself in trouble. “Sure,” he said. Internally, he was calculating the likelihood that he’d somehow managed to piss her off in their limited interaction since his freshman year.

 

He followed Mrs. Carlisle to her classroom. She shut the door behind him and sat down at her desk, gesturing for Frank to take the seat in front of her with a manicured hand. Uh-oh.

 

“Did I do something wrong?” Frank asked. He needed to start thinking of excuses and fast if he wanted to get out of whatever trouble he’d somehow gotten himself into.

 

Mrs. Carlisle smiled genuinely, and Frank felt some of his worry ebb away. “I just want to talk to you about the play,” she said. “Please, have a seat.”

 

Frank slid into the desk nervously.

 

“Your audition was very good, but it’s come to my attention that you’ve never done Drama Club before, and since you’re a senior, I wanted to know how committed you were before I put you on the list for call-backs.”

 

Frank blinked. She wanted to give him a call back?

 

“I don’t understand what you’re asking me.”

 

“As you already know, we’re doing a musical this year. It’s going to be a lot of work. There will be practice every day after school and we’ll need help with the set on a few weekends here and there. This play will be a rather large time commitment.” Mrs. Carlisle folded her hands on her desk and took on a serious expression. “It’s not uncommon for seniors to just coast their way through their last year of high school, but that won’t fly when it comes to the Drama Club. You’re either all in or you’re all out. I had to pull a lot of strings to get the administration to let us put on this particular play and it means a lot to me, personally. I want to do this right. So, before I put you on the list for call backs, I need to know that you’re all in and committed to doing what it takes to make this a good production.”

 

Frank thought for a moment. Really, he hadn’t ever intended to do the play. He had mostly just been looking for excuses to get away from Gerard. However, his art assignment – “illustrate happiness” – had really gotten him thinking about just how empty his life was. It wasn’t like he had anything going on after school, anyway. Why not do the play? If nothing else, it got him out of any social obligations that happened to fall on weekdays.

 

“I want to be in the play,” he told Mrs. Carlisle after a long pause. “I’m committed.”

 

“Are you absolutely sure?” Mrs. Carlisle’s serious expression was slowly turning back into a smile. “This is your last chance to back out if you wanted to.”

 

“Sure,” he said, and then quickly corrected himself. “Yes, I’m sure.”

 

 

 

Frank took the empty seat next to Bob, who liked to sit at the back table by the window. Neither of them said anything, but Bob nodded at Frank slightly, as though to show that this was an okay turn of events.

 

Gerard began class sitting backward on a chair he’d pulled into the aisle from an unoccupied table, arms crossed over the back as he looked over his students. He was smiling a dazed kind of smile, as though he were dreaming something sweet in real-time. Frank was irritated by the elder Way brother’s calm. He folded his own arms over his stomach unconsciously, as though to protect the anxiety that lived there.

 

 “Your next assignment is to depict an inescapable situation,” Gerard said when the bell had rung and everyone was seated. “I’m not talking, ‘oh-crap-there-are-no-windows-or-doors’. I mean that I want you to create a scenario that is uniquely inescapable, be it a conversation with your fat Aunt Martha who likes to pinch your cheeks or a pit full of snakes between you and the last slice of cake – though I recommend not using either of those ideas, since they’re mine.”

 

The girl who was always eager to answer Gerard’s questions – the one Frank had internally cataloged as a fucking nerd – giggled as though what Mr. Way had said was witty. As she nervously twirled her blonde hair around her finger, Frank decided that he hated her.

 

“The objective of this project is to make the viewer feel trapped. Whatever you choose to use to create that effect is up to you, but in order to get full points, you need to generate something close to that sensation.”

 

As the students moved about the room, collecting their materials, Frank bitterly imagined himself turning in a portrait of Gerard sitting backward in his chair, that stupid grin plastered on his face.

 

~

 

Frank wasn’t entirely sure how it happened, but it only occurred to him what he was doing after two days of working on his project. On his 16’’x20’’ sheet of charcoal paper, he had roughly sketched out an image of a man’s hand with nasty fingernails gripping onto another man’s thigh while a set of sad eyes observe from the background. The idea had been to depict unwanted sexual attention, but it was only after he started the initial shading that he realized what he had actually drawn: Bert’s hand on Gerard’s thigh, his own eyes full of heartbreak in the background.

 

He threw it away immediately and started over.

 

~

 

There was a sheet covering something in the back of the classroom on the following Monday when Frank entered the art room before eighth hour.

 

“What’s that?” the blonde girl that Frank hated asked Gerard.

 

“Don’t worry about it,” he’d told her, and Frank could have sworn that the elder Way brother’s eyes flicked over to where he was sitting for a brief second.

 

He must have been imagining it.

 

 

 

Call backs were immediately after school in Mrs. Carlisle’s room. Of the original twenty-something kids who tried out, there were only six with call backs. Among them were Frank, Brendon, a guy with long hair and a fedora, a girl with orange hair and long bangs over her forehead, another guy who slouched so deeply into his hoodie that Frank was surprised he didn’t get lost in it, and Ryan – surprisingly enough, given how nervous he’d been during his initial audition.

 

As the school play was a musical, those with call backs needed to prove that they could sing to officially get the roles that Mrs. Carlisle had in mind for them. They would each have to perform a song. Frank would have been lying if he said he wasn’t a little nervous.

 

Brendon went first. The song he picked out was, “You Make Me Feel So Young” by Frank Sinatra. Unfortunately, the kid nailed every note perfectly, making Frank more and more self-conscious with every passing second.

 

Ryan, true to form, followed right after Brendon. He sang “From Eden” by Hozier, and even though he looked like he could have thrown up the entire time he was performing, his voice was quirky in the cutest way. Frank had the overwhelming urge to wrap him in a soft blanket and a hug.

 

Frank decided to go next, partially because having to watch everyone else perform was making him ridiculously nervous and because he wanted to go home and take a nap before dinner.

 

Mrs. Carlisle handed him his guitar case – which he’d stashed in her room that morning – as he reached the front of the room. He took several seconds to uncertainly adjust himself on the stool she’d set out for him, and then he took a deep breath and began to strum the slow, deliberate opening chords of the song he’d chosen.

 

“ _Closing time_ ,” he sang, his vocals so delicate that, were they tangible, they’d shatter at the slightest touch. “ _Open all the doors and let you out into the world_.”

 

The music flowed into every crevice and corner of Frank’s body, filling up all the gaps and cracks that had formed over time.

 

“ _Closing time. Turn all of the lights on over every boy and every girl_.” Frank’s voice sounded like a thousand hearts breaking at once. “ _Closing time. One last call for alcohol, so finish your whiskey or beer_.”

 

Out of the corner of his eye, Frank could see Mrs. Carlisle smiling at him, her eyes twinkling as she did so. She seemed genuinely glad that he was there. It was kind of weird.

 

“ _Closing time_ ,” he sang, his strumming picking up slightly as the chorus approached. “ _You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here_.”

 

The chorus broke through and Frank felt the weight that had inhabited his chest lift, if only for a moment.

 

“ _I know who I want to take me home_ ,” he crooned, his voice straining with emotion. “ _I know who I want to take me home_.”

 

Music was poetry and pain, living and dying, suffocation and the first breath of air in the lungs, all at the same time. It hurt to be so raw after desperately bottling things away for so long, but it would have hurt worse not so sing that way. Gerard had majorly fucked up his life, suddenly appearing and opening wounds that should have been long-closed by then. If Frank didn’t let it out somehow, he might implode.

 

“ _I know who I want to take me home. Take me home_.”

 

 

 

This time, Frank sought out Gerard.

 

The elder Way brother was quietly grading papers at his desk when Frank walked in, sat his backpack on the nearest table, and said, “I didn’t go to your college graduation.”

 

Gerard jumped, surprised at the sudden company. He put down his pen and leaned back in his chair, diverting his full attention to Frank.

 

“You were sick,” he said.

 

“No, I wasn’t.”

 

“Oh.”

 

Frank grabbed a chair from one of the tables and pulled it up to Gerard’s desk, several feet still between them as he sat down. There was no risk of them accidentally touching that way.

 

“I told my mom I was sick because I didn’t want to see you,” Frank admitted. “I stayed home and reread _The Catcher in the Rye_.”

 

Gerard looked down at the ring on his thumb. The softness around his eyes tightened, as though it was trying to protect him, and his brow was creased with the strain of taking in the new information.

 

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked after several moments. “Are you trying to hurt me?”

 

“No,” Frank said, guilt punching him directly in the heart.

 

The silence between them stretched for almost a full minute.

 

“Look, you don’t have an excuse for never answering or reaching out to me, but it’s not like you were the only one to blame. I went out of my way to be at work, or at my dad’s, or I just played sick. I was angry – fuck, I’m still angry. But it’s shitty to have to try and dodge you, especially when we have to see each other pretty much every day.” Frank was breathing heavily, nerves getting the best of his lungs. “I’m suggesting a truce,” he said. “Just to make things bearable until I graduate.”

 

Gerard sighed and scrubbed his face roughly with his hand, standing from his seat. “I was going to try and pull you aside sometime today, anyway. I want to show you something,” he said.

 

He removed the sheet from what he’d been hiding during the day to reveal a large canvas depicting a black and white background and three colored silhouettes of children – three little boys. The shortest silhouette was painted with the colors of a glorious sunset, and he glowed as he ran through the gray grass, casting light instead of shadow. The second tallest silhouette was painted deep blueish black of the universe, dappled with the light of a million stars as he walked, carefully following behind the boy made of sunset. The third boy was the tallest, and he was painted as an endless ocean, fish swimming around in his head and torso like organs in the body. He was standing still, watching the other two as he leaned against a black and white tree.

 

“This was my senior showcase project,” he told Frank. “I think you can guess who this is supposed to be.”

 

Frank knew what he meant. The boy made of sunset was himself, the boy made of the night sky was Mikey, and the boy made of the ocean was Gerard. He had painted their childhood with the whimsy they had all once achieved just by closing their eyes and daring to imagine.

 

“You were right. I don’t have an excuse for not keeping in touch in the beginning. And, maybe it sounds kind of lame to say that I was in a bad place for a long time, but I was.” Gerard took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes. He looked tired. “The fact of the matter is that I never forgot you existed and I never meant to cut you out of my life. Maybe I took for granted that everything was fine, or maybe I was just pretending that it was. But that doesn’t mean I ever stopped caring about you.”

 

“It just means you’re an asshole. And that I am too,” Frank said. He felt tired, too. The tired ran all the way into his bones. Who knew that holding hard feelings for so long could make someone so fucking tired?

 

Gerard sat down in his chair and scooted it so that he was close enough to Frank that their knees were almost touching.

 

“I don’t want to just call a truce. I want to be friends. I don’t have a lot of people in my life that I care about, but you’re absolutely one of them and I want to do whatever it takes to make things right again.” Gerard’s eyes were pleading as he said, “Please, Frankie.”

 

Frank could feel heat – a heat that was different from rage-heat – spread through his chest. Part of him still wanted to tell Gerard to fuck off. The other part desperately wanted to forgive. He decided to aim for somewhere in the middle.

 

“I won’t make any promises,” he said, finally. “You and I aren’t really in a good place right now. But, in the name of what we were growing up and because Mikey will kick my ass, I guess we could try.”

 

Gerard smiled a real smile that reached his eyes, and the softness allowed itself to rest again, safely assured that the situation was once again safe.

 

Frank grabbed a notebook from Gerard’s desk, tore out a piece of paper, and hastily wrote his number with Gerard’s pen. “This time,” Frank said, handing him the page, “you text me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drop me a comment! I'm always a slut for constructive criticism!


	3. Act One, Scene Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS MENTIONS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT. HOWEVER BRIEF THESE MENTIONS MAY BE, I FEEL THE NEED TO WARN YOU THAT THEY ARE HERE AND MAY CAUSE PROBLEMS. READ WITH CAUTION*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would just like to apologize for how long it took me to finish this chapter. I'm a disaster of a human being. I'm literally barely functional. That's not an excuse. It's a fact. Don't expect things from me. I will let you down.
> 
> On a somewhat brighter note, here's the pain and angst you didn't ask for but are getting anyway.
> 
> I should have tagged angst like six times.
> 
> I'm sorry I'm alive but I'm not sorry I wrote this.

September bled into October in the same way that the sun bleeds into the horizon – aesthetically pleasing, but inevitably yielding darkness. In Frank’s case, the darkness came on a Tuesday in the second week of October, in which Gerard stopped him after class and offered to give him a ride home after play practice.

 

“I have to stay a little late and catch up on inputting grades,” he’d said, the small, sheepish smile that he seemed to save especially for interactions with Frank set in his lips. “Plus, I need to head over to my parents’ place to pick up some of my stuff, anyway, so it’s on my way.”

 

Frank wanted to say no. Sure, he had agreed to try and be friends with Gerard again, but it wasn’t like all the years of hard feelings had just dissolved overnight. He was still very much hurt and everything Gerard did pissed him off a little. It wasn’t a great idea to put himself in an enclosed space with the elder Way brother for any amount of time without an exit strategy, and a moving vehicle didn’t exactly offer that. Not to mention, it would be awkward as hell trying to navigate conversation with someone Frank hadn’t really spoken to in so long. He wouldn’t know what to say.

 

Ultimately, his mouth decided for him.

 

“That would be great,” his mouth said, and it smiled kindly. “Thanks.”

 

Later, Frank would tell himself that he had just wanted to extend the effort he’d initially promised. At the time, however, it was more like his inner fourteen-year-old - who still believed the sun shined out of Gerard’s ass and probably always would – had crawled out from the depths of his subconscious just to fuck him over.

 

 

 

The school production was entitled _The Death of a Bachelor_ , and after briefly skimming the script that had been handed to him as he entered the drama club meeting, it was almost immediately evident to Frank exactly why Mrs. Carlisle had had to jump through so many hoops to get it approved: it was a gay love story.

 

Taking place in the early 2000’s, _The Death of a Bachelor_ followed the story of two childhood friends who fell in love and inevitably separated in a life-altering and tragic break up, which divided their friends and left them pining for each other until their deaths at the end of the play. It was a major bummer, but overall, incredibly compelling. Plus, the music wasn’t bad.

 

Mrs. Carlisle handed out copies of the cast list as the drama club members took their seats. At the top of the page, Brendon was listed as one of the leads: Jack, half of the gay couple that ends up marrying a woman after being rejected by his counterpart, Finn. That was unsurprising, as the kid was crazy talented and obviously dedicated. He would be an excellent lead. What was surprising was the fact that Ryan was cast opposite Brendon as the love interest, Finn. Frank could practically pinpoint the exact moment when Ryan found his name on the page because his face immediately became pale and his eyes grew dull with anxiety. The poor guy could hardly read lines in front of three other people in auditions. How was he going to be able to sing in front of a full auditorium?

 

Frank’s part was listed just under Brendon and Ryan’s names. He was cast as Benedict, the long-time friend of both Finn and Jack that was not only suffering through the suicide of his wife but also the impossible choice between his two closest companions. The part seemed simple enough, only really requiring him to act unhappy – which was his norm anyway – so Frank wasn’t particularly worried about his ability to perform well enough. It was all the lines he’d have to memorize that had him a bit concerned.

“If anyone has changed their mind about being in this production, now is the time to say so,” Mrs. Carlisle said. Though she looked around the entirety of the room, her eyes seemed to linger on Frank for a fraction of a second more than everyone else.

 

No one spoke of objections.

 

“Alright, then. Now, about individual musical numbers. They aren’t stated on the sheet that has your parts listed, but if you look to the back of your scripts, you’ll find the sheet music for each number. There are four solos, which belong to Jack, Finn, and Benedict. However, everyone will be required to sing at some point in the play. So, again, I must ask if anyone is having second thoughts about their involvement with the play.” Mrs. Carlisle scanned the room expectantly, like she was just waiting for someone to disappoint her.

 

There were still no objections.

 

“Excellent. We start read-throughs tomorrow after school.”

 

 

 

Gerard drove a black Camry, and it was probably nicer than every item Frank owned combined. He was intimidated just looking at the thing, let alone the prospect of getting inside of it. What if he got it dirty or something? Then, he remembered that the car belonged to Gerard – a man who once wore the same set of clothes for an entire summer simply because Mikey bet that he couldn’t do it – and stopped worrying.

 

The seats were made of a dark gray faux leather that squeaked a little when Frank sat down. He was nervous, and he was sure it showed in the way his fingers couldn’t seem to figure out the damn buckle. How hard is it to click the thing in the fucking buckle? Why was he having so much trouble with it?

 

Gerard started the engine when Frank was finally situated, and an uneasy silence fell between them as they pulled onto the main road. The hum of the engine filled Frank’s ears, amplified a thousand times by his anxiety for the situation. It was hard to concentrate in the oppressive awkwardness.

 

The elder Way brother broke the silence after about five minutes, much to Frank’s relief and then immediate regret. “How was practice?” he asked, blatantly beginning the small talk.

 

Frank almost wished he was drowning in uncomfortable silence again. Anything was better than meaningless, idle chit chat.

 

“It was fine,” he replied shortly.

 

“What did you guys do today?”

 

“We got our parts.”

 

“Did you get a lead role?”

 

“Nope.”

 

There was a brief pause in which Frank almost let himself believe that Gerard would stop trying to talk to him, but his hope was in vain.

 

“When did you get in to theater?” he asked. His eyebrows were scrunched, like he was trying to understand something.

 

“I dunno.”

 

“I just mean that you never seemed to have any interest in it before.”

 

“Things change.”

 

There was more silence, but Frank knew better than to think the conversation was over this time.

 

“What made you want to try out?”

 

Frank briefly considered answering honestly, but immediately thought against it. Telling someone that you joined a club just to get away from them was probably not a friendly thing to do.

 

“There’s this kid on my bus that wanted me to try out,” he lied instead. “He, like, annoyed me into submission.”

 

“Is he a friend of yours?”

 

“Not really. He just kind of follows me around sometimes.” Then, thoughtlessly, he added, “I don’t really have any friends.”

 

Fuck. Now he’d opened up a whole new fuckening of a conversation topic. Why was he such a fucking idiot?

 

Gerard seemed shocked. “What about Mikey?” he asked. “You’ve been best friends with Mikey since we were kids!”

 

“I dunno. I don’t really see him much anymore. I mean, yeah, we text a lot, but I never see him. I had to mail him his birthday present because he didn’t bother to come home and spend his birthday with his family.” Then, when Frank remembered that he wasn’t actually Mikey’s family, he added, “Or me.”

 

“You don’t spend time with anyone outside of school?”

 

“Nope.”

 

Gerard seemed to be having a hard time processing this information. It was like he didn’t realize just how hard to be around that Frank truly was.

 

“Have you tried talking to the other kids in your class?” he asked.

 

“Nah.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Because I like being by myself.”

 

Gerard looked at Frank out of the corner of his eye and there was worry in his brow. Frank tried not to be irritated by that – what right did Gerard have to be worried for Frank? – and looked out the window instead of meeting the elder Way brother’s gaze.

 

“Is that why you painted a guitar for your happiness project?”

 

Frank shrugged and offered a noncommittal, “Sure.”

 

This time, the silence that grew between them was thick and entirely suffocating, as though it congealed as soon as it took up space in Frank’s lungs. He might have sighed at the ridiculous delicacy of the situation, rolled his eyes at the way Gerard’s expression glazed over like he was trying to hide his emotion, or even opened the door and jumped just to extract himself from the tension. The air in his lungs wouldn’t let him do that, though. It was too hard to breathe for him to give any kind of sigh worthy of his exasperation and his lungs were too heavy for him to move. He could have still rolled his eyes, but the moment for that had passed and it no longer felt like the right course of action. He had no choice but to engage.

 

“I spend most of my free time with my guitar,” Frank spoke up reluctantly. “It’s pretty much the only thing I really like to do besides reading and watching shitty horror movies.”

 

“Are you any good?”

 

“I dunno. I like to think so.”

 

“I was never any good at playing guitar. My mom got me one when I was twelve, but I could never make myself care enough to learn.”

 

“I remember. She gave it to me after you moved out.”

 

Gerard raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Really? I thought she sold it.”

 

“Nope. It’s in my basement somewhere. I played on it for about two years before I saved up enough to get an electric guitar from a secondhand store.” Frank did not mention that he’d coveted that guitar and the fact that it had belonged to Gerard up until the point when it became too painful to look at in his heartache. He had only bought a new guitar so that he wouldn’t have to see Gerard behind his eyes every time he strummed a chord.

 

Gerard seemed to think for a moment before a small smile grew over his lips and he said, “Did I ever tell you what I named my guitar?”

 

“No. What’d you name it?”

 

The elder Way brother huffed out a short laugh through his nose. “I named it Jareth. After the Goblin King, you know? From _Labyrinth_.”

 

“I’m not surprised,” Frank said. “You’ve had a thing for Bowie about as long as I’ve known you.”

 

Frank was surprised to discover that the Camry was pulling up to the curb in front of his house a moment later. That had been a very odd ten minutes, sometimes feeling like an eternity and sometimes passing like mere seconds. Time with Gerard was like that.

 

“Thanks for the ride,” Frank said, unbuckling and pulling the strap of his backpack over his shoulder. “I hate having to walk home.”

 

Gerard smiled, and he wasn’t annoyingly sheepish, which Frank appreciated. “Any time,” he said.

 

Frank opened the car door and stepped out onto the lawn. “Bye,” he said.

 

“I’ll see you later, Frankie.”

 

Then, Frank closed the door and went inside his house, furiously rubbing away the tiny smile that had appeared on his face without his permission.

 

~

 

On Thursday, amidst the ridiculous noise in the cafeteria, Frank heard someone speak to him.

 

“Is it cool if I sit here?” Bob asked. He was holding a tacky orange lunch tray, mystery meatloaf and a pudding cup on its surface, and he looked uncomfortable.

 

“Uh, sure,” Frank said, though it came out sounding like a question in his confusion. “It’s a free country.”

 

“Cool. Thanks.” Some of the tension in Bob’s shoulders seemed to evaporate as he sat down across from Frank.

 

Frank nodded, still perplexed, but went on eating his own food. While it was surprising that Bob wanted to sit at Frank’s table, he wasn’t annoying or anything. There were far worse people to spend a lunch period with.

 

~

 

“Run away with me,” Brendon pleaded, voice full of passion as he read his lines. “I love you. I _need_ you.”

 

Ryan, sitting opposite Frank in the circle of desks in Mrs. Carlisle’s classroom, was slouching low in his seat, obviously embarrassed. “Let go of me,” he read weakly. “If you love me, let me go.”

 

Frank tried his best not to cringe. The way Ryan read his lines was almost painfully awkward.

 

At first, Frank had hoped that maybe Ryan would warm up to reading his lines in front of the other cast members over time. However, it had been about a week and a half since the first read-through and Ryan still sucked.

 

Mrs. Carlisle must have thought the same thing because as soon as Ryan finished his line, she said, “That’s enough for today.” The bags under her eyes made her look stressed. “Frank, I believe you’re scheduled to work on your solo with me today. If you wouldn’t mind, could you stay behind?”

 

“Sure,” Frank said. It seemed obvious that it didn’t matter much if he minded or not. Mrs. Carlisle was not a woman to disappoint. Besides, it wasn’t like he had anything better to do.

 

 

 

Mrs. Carlisle was no pianist, and while she had a vague understanding of how to play, it was incredibly frustrating for Frank to keep up with her as she played the melody. It all sounded off and just plain _not right_.

 

Frank’s phone buzzed in his pocket as he finished his third run-through, and he excused himself for a moment to check it.

 

He had a text from Gerard. **Ended up staying late again.** it said. **Need a ride home?**

 

Frank had half a mind to decline, given how awkward the last ride had been, but then he remembered how much he hated walking and that it was Friday. If things got too weird, he wouldn’t have to see Gerard for another two days.

 

 **Yeah,** he replied. **I’ll meet up with you when I’m done with practice.**

 

 

 

“Are you getting excited for your birthday?” Gerard asked as they sped down the highway. His hair glowed richly in the late afternoon light as it blew around his face, air wind invading through the open windows. “It’s only about a week and a half away, right?”

 

“Yeah, it’s on Wednesday.”

 

“You’re turning eighteen, too! Are you excited to be a legal adult?”

 

“Meh,” Frank said, and he shrugged. “Not particularly. It just means more expectations. Mom will want me to get a job, I’ll have to get my own car, I’ll have to pay for gas and shit. I mean, I already pay for gas when I use Mom’s car, but now I’ll have to pay for my own gas, which is somehow worse.”

 

Gerard laughed a little, the sound warm against the chill of the breeze. “There’s more to being an adult than just bills and expectations,” he said.

 

Frank was skeptical. “Like what?”

 

“Well, you can eat pretty much anything you want, and your mom can’t tell you not to.”

 

Frank huffed out shortly through his nose in place of a laugh. “Is that all?”

 

“Oh, no. That’s just the beginning. You can also legally play those sex games that Porn Hub is always advertising.”

 

Frank snorted – actually fucking snorted – and choked on a laugh. “Oh, well if porn is involved,” he said sarcastically. “If I’d only known that ahead of time, maybe I’d have properly prepared myself to be excited for my birthday.”

 

“That’s why I’m here.” Gerard was smiling widely. Frank could have sworn that he saw literal flakes of sunshine glinting between the elder Way brother’s teeth, like there was magic in that stupid grin of his. “Somebody had to make sure you enjoy your birthday.”

 

For some unknown reason, something in Frank’s stomach did a flip. He wondered if he was maybe getting sick or something. As he watched Gerard from the corner of his eye and his stomach continued doing its unsanctioned flips, Frank decided that he probably was sick. After all, he didn’t even like Gerard that much.

 

He was definitely sick.

 

~

 

“Frankie,” Linda cooed into her son’s ear. She pushed some of the hair off his forehead and planted a kiss there. “Happy birthday, Sweet Boy. It’s time to wake up!”

 

Frank groaned and attempted to turn over, but Linda was not having it. She used her superhuman mom powers to prevent his rolling over into the pillows.

 

“Come on, Baby,” she said. “I have a surprise for you downstairs, but you’ve got to get up.”

 

“Five more minutes,” Frank pleaded.

 

Were his eyes open, he might have seen his mother assume the Mom Pose™, complete with her hands on her hips and a single eyebrow raised. “You’ve got five more _seconds_ before I roll your happy ass out of bed,” she said lovingly. Then, she ripped the covers from his body and threw them across the room. “Up, up, up!”

 

Reluctantly, Frank did so.

 

“What’s the surprise?” he asked, his voice hoarse from sleep as he threw his legs over the side of the bed and stood wearily.

 

“It’s a surprise, Frankie. I can’t just tell you.”

 

Frank attempted a glare at his mother, but he was too tired to have full control over his face, so he looked like he was squinting instead.

 

It was all Frank could do not to fall down the stairs, eyes too tired to perceive depth the way the normally did. _It’s your day off!_ they seemed to say. _Why are you even awake?_ Frank had to admit, he was wondering the same thing. However, there was no way his mother was going to let him go back to bed, and she looked weirdly excited anyway. Whatever the surprise was, it seemed promising.

 

It wasn’t until Frank turned the corner from the foyer at his mother’s insistence and entered the kitchen that he realized what the surprise was.

 

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty.”

 

Frank blinked hard and rubbed his eyes, hoping that they weren’t playing tricks on him. When he opened them again, Mikey was still sitting at the kitchen table, sly smile on his face as he reclined in his chair.

 

“I’m still sleeping,” Frank reasoned. “This isn’t real. You’re not really here.”

 

“I’m really here. Happy birthday, Frankie.”

 

Mikey stood from his chair and held out his arms awkwardly, like he was unsure if a hug was the way to go in that moment. Frank wasted no time in bounding forward, tackling his oldest and best friend in a death-grip of a hug.

 

“I can’t believe you’re actually here,” Frank said, voice distant in his shock. “I thought you weren’t coming home ‘til Thanksgiving.”

 

Mikey shrugged into the hug. “Surprise, kid.”

 

 

 

Frank’s birthday was a special day. Starting the year his parents divorced, Frank was allowed to stay home from school and spend the day around the house. Then, in the evening, he would have dinner with both of his parents – together at the same time. The presents were nice, too, of course, but the most important thing was that his parents actually spoke to each other without hostility whenever they were celebrating the anniversary of their only son’s birth.

 

This birthday was extra special. He was going to spend the day with Mikey, who had driven five hours home from college just to spend Frank’s birthday with him. Frank hadn’t realized how much he’d missed his best friend until he was sitting in the passenger seat of Mikey’s car, smiling unconsciously at the mere presence of the younger Way brother beside him.

 

The first stop in their birthday celebration schedule was, evidently, a tattoo parlor. Frank had been confused at first, having assumed that Mikey had wanted to touch up one of his own tattoos. It didn’t make a lot of sense, but whatever. They got to spend time together.

 

However, that was not Mikey’s intention. Frank was getting a tattoo, he insisted, and Mikey wanted to pay for it.

 

“You’re not serious,” Frank had insisted.

 

Mikey gave him a look that effectively said, “Bitch, try me,” and that conversation was effectively ended.

 

The tattoo parlor was run by a guy named Pete, who was pretty in a very “jock-meets-punk-rocker-and-has-a-fling-resulting-in-a-child-going-through-their-emo-phase” kind of way. He was cute, with straight dark hair hanging over his forehead, an impish smile, and kohl rimmed eyes that very blatantly watched Mikey with intense interest.

 

Ultimately, Frank decided to get a scorpion tattooed on his neck just above where the collar would cover it. “That way, I can never get a real job,” he’d joked.

 

The process hurt, kind of like someone was taking the edge of a razor blade and scraping off layers of skin, but it wasn’t entirely unbearable, and Pete played good music as he worked. Plus, with Mikey sitting beside him, offering encouraging half-smiles every now and then, Frank hardly even registered the pain.

 

When the tattoo was finished after an hour and a half, Pete declared his work to be worth $40.

 

“That’s ridiculous,” Mikey protested. “It looks nice and you took your time on it. Did you use a diseased needle or something?”

 

Pete laughed a full laugh that crinkled his eyes in the corners. “Nothing like that,” he insisted. “Usually, something this size and with this amount of detail would be worth about $60. However, you can pay me the $40 and maybe go out with me sometime, and we’ll call it even.”

 

“Uh, okay,” Mikey said, surprise etched into his face. He rubbed the back of his neck in a rare show of awkwardness. “That sounds…sure.”

 

Mikey gave Pete his credit card to pay for the tattoo, then scribbled his phone number on a sticky note from the desk, all the while glancing at Pete as though to make sure it wasn’t some kind of joke. The artist just smiled sweetly back every time he caught Mikey’s eye.

 

A bashful smile crossed Mikey’s face as they exited the tattoo parlor and remained there as they drove towards the next location.

 

 

 

The second destination of the day was the park near Frank’s subdivision where he, Mikey, and Gerard had spent many afternoons and birthday parties in their childhood. It was calm and quiet there in the early afternoon, especially so because it was a weekday. Frank and Mikey perched themselves on the old, well-worn swings as they’d done countless times in their younger days.

 

“So, how are things?” Mikey asked nonspecifically as they rocked back and forth on their respective swings.

 

“Which things?” Frank scuffed his converse into the sand below his feet as he’d always done. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

 

Mikey thought for a moment. “School, I guess. How’s school?”

 

“School is fine. I’m not failing or anything, so I take that as a win.”

 

“And how’s the play going?”

 

“It’s alright. There’s this one id who can’t read his lines for shit, though. I mean, he can _read_ , but apparently not with any kind of emotion. It kinda seems like he doesn’t want to be there.”

 

“That’s weird.”

 

“Yeah. Plus, he has a lead role.”

 

“Dude, that blows.”

 

“Yeah, I know.”

 

There was silence between them as Mikey stared intently into the tree line. He scrunched his nose and scratched at the darker hair behind his ears, and it seemed like he was thinking hard about something. When he finally spoke after a full minute of silence, he asked, “How are things with Gerard?”

 

There it was. Frank had been hoping that Mikey wouldn’t bring up his brother and that they could just enjoy the day as though Gerard didn’t exist. Couldn’t he have just one day where he didn’t have to think about the elder Way brother, with his stupid red hair and hazel eyes?

 

“They’re okay, I guess,” Frank said, voice quiet so as not to punctuate the disappointment within it.

 

“Define ‘okay’.” Mikey was looking at Frank with an unreadable expression, like this was a very important question and he didn’t want to sway the answer with his face. “What does ‘okay’ entail?”

 

“Well… I’m not actively avoiding him, so I guess that’s good.” Frank shrugged and kicked hard at the sand. “I dunno, Mikey. He’s given me a ride home from school a few times, but I wouldn’t say we’re best friends or anything.”

 

Mikey looked to the tree line again, and his voice took on a tone of confession. “You know, he called me a while back,” he said. “About you, I mean.”

 

“What?” Frank stopped swinging and sat motionless. “Was he, like… telling on me, or something?”

 

“What? No.” Mikey gave him a look that suggested he thought Frank was a fucking idiot. “What are we? Five? No. He was just upset. Woke me up at the ass-crack of night, crying over the phone. He was pretty much incoherent, but I could sort of make out the phrase, ‘Frankie hates me,’ and several instances of the word ‘fuck’.”

 

“I don’t _hate_ him,” Frank said weakly, looking to his worn-out converse, which were coated in fine layer of sand and dirt. He buried them further into the soft ground. “I just don’t like him a whole lot.”

 

Mikey sighed through his nose. “I know.” No one said anything for a few more seconds before he continued, “I’m only bringing this up because it’s getting really hard to be in the middle of you two. He’s an ass and he’s really bad about isolating himself, but he’s still my brother. And so are you.”

 

“I just… I’ve never considered Gerard to be family. He was always kind of more than that, I guess. I was in love with him before I knew what love was.” The words tasted like vinegar as he spit them out. “But I was never that special to him.”

 

“Just because he wasn’t interested in you romantically doesn’t mean you weren’t important.”

 

Frank laughed bitterly. “Maybe, but the fact that he stopped talking to me altogether after he moved out suggests that I wasn’t worth shit.”

 

“He’s just a dick about showing people he cares about them, especially with the people he’s closest to,” Mikey insisted. “Take it from my mom. She didn’t even know he was moving back to town until he’d already unpacked all his shit.”

 

“I heard about that.”

 

“He cares about you. He’s just a dick. It’s nothing personal.”

 

Frank looked at Mikey – at the blonde hair and the brown eyes and the sharp jawline that he’d known for so long – and then looked back at his shoes. Mikey just didn’t get it and Frank didn’t want to talk about Gerard anymore.

 

“Okay,” he said. “Now, can we talk about something else? It’s my birthday. I don’t wanna be bummed out today.”

 

Mikey sighed, but agreed. “Alright,” he said. “Let’s see about getting you your first legal pack of cigarettes.”

 

~

 

“Where were you yesterday?” Brendon asked the very second Frank entered his eyeline. He plopped down into the bus seat clumsily, eager for attention. “Also, is that a tattoo?”

 

“Yeah. I got it for my birthday,” Frank said. Weirdly enough, he wasn’t immediately annoyed by Brendon’s presence. He was still sort of floating on the high of spending time with his best friend, who was on his way back to college as Frank was on his way to school. “It’s pretty cool.”

 

“Does it hurt?” Brendon asked, reaching to poke at the exposed ink.

 

Frank swatted the kid’s hand away. “Yeah, it hurts. Don’t touch it.”

 

“Sorry. Did it hurt while you were getting it?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Are you gonna get another one?”

 

“Probably.”

 

“What do you think you’ll get?”

 

“I dunno yet.”

 

“Hey, Ryan!” Brendon interjected, turning around completely in the bus seat to face his friend. “Check out Frank’s tattoo!”

 

Ryan looked surprised to be addressed, and his face was paler than usual. He glanced quickly at Frank, and then back to his lap, mumbling, “Looks cool.”

 

“Are you okay?” Frank asked, the words out of his mouth before he realized that he had bothered to form them.

 

“I’m fine,” Ryan said, his voice oddly harsh and definitive for such a sweet noise. “Just a little car sick.”

 

Frank could believe it. The poor kid looked like he might throw up.

 

 

 

“Oh, hey! Frank!” Gerard called as Frank was exiting the classroom after the final bell.

 

Reluctantly, the neighbor boy turned at the sound of his name and reentered the room. Gerard was rooting around behind his desk, things clattering as they made contact with the floor.

 

“I got you something for your birthday,” he said.

 

Frank felt his eyes widen, surprise flitting between his dark lashes. “You didn’t have to get me anything,” he insisted.

 

“Nonsense,” Gerard said, producing a package and setting it on his desk. “You only turn eighteen once.”

 

Frank approached the desk and observed his present with latent curiosity. The package was a little bigger than Frank’s hand and carefully wrapped in yellow paper, a small white bow taped to its corner. It wasn’t heavy when he picked it up.

 

“What is it?” he asked, flicking the bow between his fingers.

 

“Open it up and see,” Gerard prompted. “I think you’ll like it.”

 

Frank didn’t have to be told twice. He tore the paper off quickly, crumpling it beneath his fingers and tossing it onto the desk. He was temporarily rendered speechless by the contents.

 

“Do you like it?” Gerard asked, his voice earnest.

 

“Yeah, I… I love it,” Frank said. He meant it, too.

 

In his hand, Frank held a picture frame with a photo of his four-year-old self, six-year-old Mikey, and nine-year-old Gerard laughing as they ran about the backyard. Capes were slung about their necks as they pretended to be heroes. It was like he was looking at a frozen moment of his childhood. All he needed to do was close his eyes and he could smell the grass, feel the wind on his face and in his hair. If he concentrated hard enough, he might even be able to grasp a small piece of that unending happiness that he had once known in innocence but lost to the harsher realities of the adult world.

 

“It’s not much, but I found it in some old scrapbooks at my parents’ house and thought you’d like it,” Gerard said. “Happy birthday, Frankie.”

 

Frank wasn’t entirely sure how he ended up with his arms around Gerard’s neck, squeezing the older man in an impromptu hug. One second, he’d been standing next to Gerard’s desk, looking at the picture frame in the way any fully functional person might, and then he was in the elder Way brother’s personal space, holding tightly and surprising both of them.

 

“Thank you,” Frank said into Gerard’s shoulder. “It’s perfect.”

 

Gerard wrapped his arms around Frank’s waist, reciprocating the hug properly. “Any time,” he said, his warm breath floating softly over the shell of Frank’s ear.

 

Frank didn’t notice the goosebumps that had risen over his arms until he was half way to Mrs. Carlisle’s classroom for practice.

 

~

 

November arrived with all the force of a freight train to the face. The weather had been growing colder in small increments throughout October, the day-time temperatures dropping a few degrees at a time. However, with the appearance of November, the weather dived to just barely above freezing and the sky appeared dull even on sunny days. Winter was coming – however cliché _Game of Thrones_ might have made that expression – and it sucked ass.

 

The Monday of the first full week of November was particularly cold, and it put Frank in a bad mood. It wasn’t just any bad mood, either. This was the kind of grumpiness that settled deep into his bones and etched a resting bitch face over his usual expressions. Were he a woman, dude-bros everywhere would be asking if he was on his period because of his hostility. It was the kind of mood that made him want to scream and cry at the same time, indignant at the prospect of doing his part to be a functional member of society when he’d really rather be doing pretty much anything else.

 

Frank really hated when it was cold.

 

 

 

Frank glared at his lunch bitterly, not so much irritated with the ham and cheese sandwich as he was with his very existence. Being alive was particularly inconvenient at that moment. There was a chill in his spine that he just couldn’t shake and it was seriously pissing him off.

 

“You look like someone pissed in your cheerios this morning,” Bob noted unhelpfully as he sat down across from Frank with his lunch. “What’s up?"

 

“It’s fucking cold,” Frank grumbled, stabbing his sandwich with a nearby carrot repeatedly as though the thing owed him money.

 

Bob raised an eyebrow. “Is that all?”

 

“I hate being cold. I’d rather have sex with Donald Trump than be cold.”

 

“You’re gonna have to put that into context for me. Do you dislike Trump or do you have a weird crush on him?”

 

“I have a weird crush on Paul McCartney. If given the opportunity, I’d gladly light Donald Trump on fire and warm my hands over his burning corpse. He’s a racist, misogynistic, homophobic swamp monster and somehow looks like he smells like the inside of a medicine cabinet.”

 

“Hold on. What does the inside of a medicine cabinet smell like?”

 

“Peroxide, fish oil vitamins, and the sudden, crippling fear of mortality that overcomes you every time you look at all the shit you’ve collected just to try and buy yourself a little more time on the planet we’re slowly killing.”

 

“You’re really fucking morbid today.”

 

“I would literally rather have Donald Trump’s nasty-ass orange dick thrust inside of me than be cold.”

 

Bob choked on his lasagna. “I’m trying to eat, Frank,” he said between coughs.

 

“You asked what was wrong. This is what you get.”

 

“Look, just try not to think about it.”

 

“I can’t just not think about being cold. I’m fucking cold. It’s all-consuming. I’m dying. I hate being cold.”

 

“I swear, you might be a bigger drama queen than Mr. Way,” Bob said, pointing his fork at Frank accusingly.

 

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

 

“Remember when Mr. Way started crying actual tears because Vic said he’d never seen _Labyrinth_?”

 

Frank nodded in the affirmative.

 

“You’ve surpassed that. Like, Mr. Way is pretty consistently a level ten diva. You’re hovering somewhere around a level fifteen.”

 

“Fuck off, Bryar,” Frank grumbled. Then, after a few seconds, “Jesus fucking Christ, it’s cold in here.”

 

 

 

Gerard was sitting on top of one of the typically vacated tables in the front row, legs crisscrossed and smile bright, as the students filed into the room for their final class period. His hair was pulled back into a clumsy ponytail, red strands falling and framing his face oddly well for the mess that it was. He looked calm and oddly pretty.

 

Frank tried to avoid looking at him.

 

When the bell rang, Gerard addressed the class with a question rather than a greeting. “If you could be something else – anything else – what would you be?” he asked. “Please raise your hands.”

 

The blonde girl that Frank hated was the first to raise her hand. “I’d be a goddess,” she said when she was called on. “Like, a love goddess.”

 

Frank gagged internally and decided that he hadn’t hated the blonde girl enough before. He was upgrading his hatred to loathing. He loathed Britney from her dumb, blonde core to her ridiculously high-pitched, bitch voice.

 

“Way to aim high, Britney,” Gerard said with a small, awkward laugh. “Anyone else?”

 

A kid in the front row of tables raised his hand. He had light brown, shoulder length hair and wore the same black snapback every day. Frank was pretty sure he was the kid Bob had referred to as “Vic” at lunch.

 

“If I could be anything, I’d be a king,” Vic said. “I’m tired of having to beg for the shit that I want. It’d be nice to be the boss, even if it was only for the day.”

 

“What would you be the king of?” Gerard prompted.

 

“Fuck, I dunno. Everything?”

 

Gerard nodded, and Frank was pretty sure he heard the elder Way brother muttering something about “a class full of power-hungry kids”.

 

A girl with black hair and skin pale enough that she could conceivably be a vampire raised her hand next. Frank vaguely recognized her from the play practices she’d attended but couldn’t remember her name for the life of him. She tended to keep to herself, but her voice was powerful.

 

“I’d be a mermaid,” she announced when Gerard called on her. “Then, I could have nice hair, no responsibilities, and I could lure men to their deaths when they piss me off.”

 

Gerard laughed nervously. “Anyone else?”

 

Frank raised his hand.

 

“Yes, Frank. What would you be?”

 

“I’d be happy.”

 

Frank wasn’t sure why he said that. He’d been about to say something along the lines of wanting to be a sasquatch so that no one could find him and force social obligations upon him. Then, Gerard looked at him with his stupid eyes and that had fallen out instead. What the fuck was wrong with him?

 

It was very quiet in the classroom.

 

“Anyone else?” Gerard asked.

 

No one said anything.

 

“Alright, then. Your next assignment is a self-portrait that takes place in an alternate universe. That means you can put yourself in any world excepting this world and any worlds depicting content that could get me fired.” Gerard didn’t have the attention of the class. They were looking at each other, judgement written under tired eyes and over chapped lips, stuck on what Frank had said.

 

Frank kind of wanted to curl into a ball and die. Why did he have to say that? Why couldn’t he just be a normal, functional person?

 

“For example,” Gerard continued. “I’d probably depict myself as Jareth, the Goblin King.” Then, with a very pointed look at Vic, “You know. From _Labyrinth_.”

 

The blonde girl that Frank loathed laughed dutifully. Holy fuck, was she annoying.

 

“Any questions?” Gerard asked the class.

 

There were no questions and Frank was too busy sinking into himself to bother asking anything.

 

“Alright. Get to work, then.”

 

 

 

Frank walked home with Brendon and Ryan for three reasons:

 

  1. Though he wasn’t sure when it had happened, Brendon had transitioned from the annoying kid who followed Frank around to a sort-of-friend – which was like a regular friend, but with less obligation emotional. It was hardly weird at all to spend the extra thirty minutes talking to him, especially since Frank didn’t have to talk much when Brendon got really into a topic.
  2. If Frank walked behind them, they sheltered him from the brunt of the wind. This was good, as Frank was already cold as fuck and he’d be even colder if he didn’t have the two sophomores as human shields.
  3. Frank was too much of a little bitch to ask Gerard for a ride home. He had been so worried that the elder Way brother would try to lecture him or impart some sincere life advice that even the prospect of seat-warmers couldn’t make him ask. He regretted that decision as soon as the wind started bitch slapping him from the side.



 

“I heard there’s a party at Britney S.’s this Friday,” Brendon said, breaking into Frank’s thoughts. “Are you going?”

 

“Nah” Frank said. Party’s weren’t really his thing and he fucking hated Britney. He said as much: “I fucking hate Britney.”

 

“I mean, does it matter? A party’s a party,” Brendon said. “You probably wouldn’t even see her.”

 

“Yeah, maybe. Have you ever been to a party before?” Frank asked, raising an eyebrow at his sophomore friend-thing.

 

“Well… no. But I’m sure it’ll be fun.”

 

Frank breathed out a short laugh. “High school parties aren’t fun. It’s just a bunch of assholes getting drunk and listening to shitty music. Take it from me. I’ve been to a few of them. Spoiler alert: they all sucked.”

 

“I mean… it sounded fun to me.” Brendon picked at his jeans as he walked, obviously trying not to show the disappointment on his face. “We don’t have to go if you don’t want.”

 

“You and Ryan can still go without me. Just because I don’t want to go doesn’t mean you can’t still have fun.”

 

Brendon nodded but said nothing and Ryan acknowledged Frank with an expression that said something like, “Look what you did.”

 

It was then that Frank realized he was a fucking sucker.

 

“If you want to go, I’ll go with you,” he said, knowing full and well that he’d regret offering. “I dunno when your curfew is, but I guess you guys could stay at my house, or something.”

 

Brendon was beaming like he’d just been given a great gift. “Really?” he asked. “You’re serious?”

 

“Sure,” Frank said, sighing internally. He’d just agreed to a social obligation – the bane of his existence. Why? Because Brendon pouted and, evidently, Frank was a fucking pushover in the face of inconveniencing skinny rays of annoying sunshine.

 

“This is gonna be a blast!” Brendon practically squeaked. “You’re a good friend, Frank. We’re gonna have so much fun!”

 

“Uh, thanks.”

 

Oh, hell. Brendon put up with his general bitchiness every day. The least he could do was spend an evening with his peers in a loud room that smelled like cheap booze. It would probably be super uncomfortable, but it wouldn’t kill him. Or, if he was super lucky, it would kill him, and he’d be put out of his misery.

 

~

 

Frank had learned his lesson on walking home, the lesson being that it was cold as fuck and he should avoid it at all costs. If the worst he had to deal with was a barely-adult trying to give him advice, it was worth it to not be assaulted by the weather. Plus, with the sun starting to set sooner, it wouldn’t be long before he’d have to start walking home in the dark. Being a little bitch about it was no longer an option.

 

Still, Frank wasn’t keen on the idea of Gerard – a man who, at the age of seventeen, had once refused to leave his room for two whole days after his mother told him he couldn’t wear a mini skirt to school – giving him advice. To avoid this, he initiated small talk, even though he fucking hated small talk.

 

“Why did you decide to be a teacher?” Frank asked him.

 

“Well, it definitely wasn’t because of the money. They don’t pay me for shit,” Gerard replied, laughing a little as he spoke. “I guess I just really wanted to connect and do something important. It means a lot to me to be able to influence the art of the next generation.” Gerard smiled sweetly as he said this, and is hazel eyes sparkled in the setting sunlight. He was completely pure and genuine.

 

Frank looked away before he started staring like a creep.

 

“What about you, Frankie? What do you wanna do with your life?”

 

“I don’t really know,” Frank said honestly. “Maybe I’ll do something with music.”

 

“You’ll have to play something for me sometime. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you perform.” Then, after thinking a moment, “Well, I take that back. There was that one time when you were, like, seven and we put on that show for our parents in your backyard.”

 

A smile crossed Frank’s face unbidden as the memory resurfaced. “I remember that,” he said. “We made curtains out of bedsheets and rigged them with fishing wire.”

 

Gerard giggled – that fucker fucking giggled – a sweet and innocent sound “We spent more time working on those fucking curtains than we did rehearsing our show.”

 

“That was back before you were too cool to hang out with us,” Frank said. Though his tone was teasing, his words were true, and Gerard’s smile faltered for a fraction of a moment.

 

“I wish I’d known then that I would never be too cool for you, Frankie. Would’ve saved a lot of time.” Then, Gerard looked over at him and smiled sincerely, his lips curving in a way that made it a little harder for Frank to breathe.

 

It felt like Frank had just been sucker punched directly in the chest. It was too much. Gerard was really, _really_ pretty and his eyes were so fucking soft, and he was acting like he genuinely cared about Frank. It was unfair how well he had rendered the neighbor boy defenseless, especially since Frank only had those defenses in the first place because of Gerard.

 

As quickly as Gerard had looked over, he looked back to the road, continuing to drive as though he hadn’t just personally reached into Frank’s chest and squeezed his heart a little.

 

Frank stared out the window, diligently trying to slow his breathing.

 

When the Camry pulled up to the curb and stopped, Frank was already unbuckled, bag in hand as he prepared to make a run for it. He was starting to feel… weird. He was feeling kind of sick a lot, recently.

 

He might have made it out the door if not for Gerard reaching over and grabbing the hand that had been going for the door handle, effectively stopping all of Frank’s motion and any thought processes that might have been occurring at the time.

 

“I wanna ask you something before you bolt out of here,” Gerard explained, allowing the hand in his grasp to drop into Frank’s lap.

 

Frank’s voice was barely audible as he spoke. “Okay.” He felt out of his mind, his brain too preoccupied with the traitor tingling sensation that had taken over his hand where Gerard had touched him to be able to function normally.

 

“Are you… you know, okay?” Gerard asked. “Like, emotionally okay?”

 

The lie was automatic. “I’m fine,” he said. “I was just joking around the other day. I guess no one got it.”

 

Gerard let out a short, awkward laugh, and Frank stared determinedly at the dash board, refusing to look at any smiles that might ruin him. After all, his hand was still tingling. Gerard was a dangerous man.

 

“Would you tell me if you weren’t okay?”

 

Gerard’s tone had taken on the delicacy it had always reserved for times when Frank had needed comforting. Frank now hated that tone, and he cringed at the memory of Gerard’s hands holding on to his face, reassuring and sturdy. He hated that he had once found comfort in those hands. In fact, Frank wasn’t so sure he didn’t still hate Gerard. Maybe that was why he was feeling so weird around the elder Way brother. He was obviously so disgusted by the mere presence of the person who had wronged him and then reentered his life as though nothing had changed that he was physically reacting to it. That was the only plausible explanation.

 

“No, I wouldn’t,” Frank said honestly, voice blank. He was trying to conceal the irritation welling up in his chest that had started with is traitor fingers and only grown with Gerard’s fake interest in Frank’s wellbeing.

 

There was very obvious disappointment in Gerard’s voice as he simply replied, “Oh.”

 

What was he expecting? “ _Oh, Gee, you’re the only person I would talk to!_ ” or, “ _You’re my bestest friend in the whole world! Of course I’d talk to you if I was upset!_ ”? That wasn’t going to happen, and if Gerard had thought anything of the sort, he was a fool.

 

“You know that I care about you, right?” Gerard asked. He reached out and held onto Frank’s chin, forcing Frank to look at him. “I care about you.”

 

Frank pulled his face from Gerard’s grip, uncomfortable with the gentleness of those fingers. They reminded him too much of different times. Those times were in the past. The past needed to die.

 

“Okay. Cool,” he said. “I need to go, okay? Homework.” He was lying. The situation was pushing the limits of his patience. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

 

Gerard reached over Frank and pulled the door shut as the neighbor boy tried to open it.

 

“Will you please just talk to me instead of running away?” His voice sounded tired. “While I love your flair for dramatic exits, it’s starting to get on my nerves with how often you make them in the middle of our conversations.” The elder Way brother’s face was serious but calm, and he reached out once more to firmly grasp Frank’s chin, once again forcing eye contact. “I want you to talk to me. I care about you.”

 

“So, you keep saying,” Frank spat, twisting from Gerard’s grip. Now he was really starting to get pissed. Why did Gerard keep touching him? Most people would have taken the hint after the first time Frank pulled away. “I’ll believe it when you stop acting like I’m a child.”

 

“I’ll stop treating you like a child when you stop behaving like one.”

 

Frank blinked incredulously. “I am _not_ behaving like a child.”

 

“Then tell me what’s wrong.”

 

“What? No.”

 

“You’re not leaving this car until you tell me what’s wrong.” Gerard pressed the child lock to prove his point.

 

Frank’s voice was taking on a hint of hysteric anger, his words punctuated by bitter half-laughter. “I don’t want to talk to you!” He needed to get out of that car. He needed to get away.

 

“That really sucks.”

 

“You can’t make me talk.” He was about ready to break the window and crawl out of that stupid Camry.

 

“Then I guess we’ll just sit in silence.”

 

Frank let out a frustrated half-scream and kicked the dashboard. “Let me out! I don’t want to be around you!”

 

“Talk. To. Me.”

 

“I. _Can’t_.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Because _you’re the problem_!” Frank yelled, his voice breaking with his fury. He could feel rage heat rising into his cheeks. “You just don’t _get_ it! I’m not that dumb-ass kid that was so obviously and painfully in love with you anymore. Things have changed! I’m a different person now. But, then, every time I see you, there you are pretending that things are somehow the same way they used to be before you left. They’re not, and they’ll _never_ be that way again!”

 

Frank reached across Gerard and unlocked the child lock. Then, he grabbed his bag and opened the door, one foot on the grass and the other still in the vehicle.

 

“So, don’t touch me and don’t act like you know me. You fucking don’t. You missed my formative years fucking around, doing god-knows-what, and not bothering to tell any of the people who cared about you what was going on. You don’t know shit, and you definitely don’t have any right to try and comfort me when the only reason I need comforting in the first place is because _you_ keep fucking with my life!”

 

Frank stood and slammed the door behind him to accentuate his point.

 

 

 

It wasn’t until much later, at two I the morning as Frank laid in bed, unable to sleep, that he realized he’d made another dramatic exit.

 

~

 

Britney’s house was on the better side of town, and Frank hated it. He didn’t usually waste energy on hating buildings, but he hated this building specifically because it housed Britney, whom he loathed. Damn her and her stupidly big home. What a fucking bitch.

 

Brendon was practically vibrating with excitement as he obsessively straightened his shirt and fidgeted with his hair, which he’d straightened within an inch of its life. “I’m so excited!” he said. “I can’t believe I’m going to my first real party!”

 

Frank resisted the urge to roll his eyes at his friend’s enthusiasm. It was really getting in the way of his bad mood.

 

Gerard had been very obviously upset in eighth hour. He didn’t smile _once_ , which was particularly abnormal for a man who could probably find something to smile about at a funeral.

 

After Gerard finished muttering an impressive string of expletives regarding the paint he’d spilled on himself, Bob turned to Frank with raised eyebrows and a mouth partially open in shock. “Jesus fuck,” he whispered to Frank. “Who died? I’ve never seen Mr. Way this upset.”

 

Frank shrugged and struggled to stifle the guilt that had begun building up in his chest. He had no reason to be guilty, after all. Gerard’s bad mood was Gerard’s problem, not his.

 

It became Frank’s problem when he caught Gerard looking at him. The elder Way brother didn’t look away when he realized he’d been caught, either. He just sat there, scowl still on his face from the paint incident.

 

Frank had been in a bad mood ever since.

 

Brendon was already halfway to the door by the time Frank snapped out of his thoughts, and he shook himself a little before he got out of his mom’s car. He didn’t need to be thinking about Gerard. In fact, he _shouldn’t_ be thinking about Gerard. It would only bring him down – or at least lower than he already was.

 

 

 

Brendon and Ryan were nowhere to be found when Frank finally made it inside. He shrugged it off, though. He wasn’t their babysitter. It wasn’t paramount that he know their every movement.

 

There was some shitty pop bop blasting over a hidden speaker, and people were screaming just to be heard as they stood side by side. An initial survey of the house revealed that all booze was kept in the kitchen and that the majority of bodies were grinding on a makeshift dance floor in the living room. The whole situation immediately grated on his nerves.

 

Frank had had his fill of partying after Mikey had initially gone away to college. He’d been lonely and depressed, and the booze and dancing filled the void that had grown where his best friend had been. If he got wasted enough, and he usually did, he’d sleep with someone. It didn’t really matter who and it didn’t really matter where. What mattered was that he forgot, even temporarily, that he was absolutely lost in the world.

 

Frank had earned quite the reputation for being a bit of a whore that year, but he could never make himself care much about it. People still ignored him as much as they ever had. The only difference was that now they were shit-talking him while they did the same amount of ignoring they’d done before. The level of isolation wasn’t fluctuating, there was no point in wasting energy on being upset. The only lasting effect of his escapades was that he no longer felt the need to party, having partied so hard and so often before. That was why, after having only been at Britney’s house for fifteen minutes, Frank was ready to leave.

 

To pass the time, Frank plopped down into an empty patio chair by the pool in the backyard – god _damnit_ , Britney – and stared blankly into the sky while he waited for Brendon and Ryan to get ready to leave.

 

Once, he wondered if the few stars he could see were the same ones he’d been able to see from his backyard as a child, sleeping outside in a tent with Gerard and Mikey. He immediately stopped that train of thought, booting Gerard from his mind. The past was dead. It would’ve been nice if, for once, it could stay that way.

 

 

 

Frank must have dozed off at some point. He knew this because he was awoken by Ryan violently shaking his shoulder.

 

“What the fuck, Ryan?” he asked, voice rough. Jesus Christ, how long had he been asleep? “What d’you want?”

 

“I can’t find Brendon!” Ryan told him, on the verge of tears. “You have to help me find him!”

 

Frank rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair, intent on resuming the nap he hadn’t realized he was taking. “He’s probably just dancing somewhere.”

 

“I already _checked_.” Ryan shook Frank again. “Frank, _please_. I think his drink was spiked or something. He was acting really weird and then he was gone!”

 

Frank glared up into the sky. It was really starting to piss him off that he’d become so much of a sucker in such a short amount of time.

 

“Alright,” he sighed, getting up from his chair reluctantly. “Where did you last see him?”

 

“I dunno. He was talking to some girl with, like, blonde hair and a weirdly high-pitched voice.”

 

“Are you talking about Britney?”

 

“I don’t know her name!” Ryan was nearing hysterics. Frank wondered idly when the last time was that Ryan had done anything without Brendon. “All I know is that she was, like, really irritating.”

 

“Definitely Britney, then.” Frank sighed, irritated with how easily he had become ready to be uncomfortable for Brendon and Ryan, irritated with the fact that his sleep had been interrupted, and irritated that he’d have to talk to the one person in the world he was pretty sure he truly despised. “Come on. Let’s go find her.”

 

 

 

Britney, as it turned out, was not hard to find. Frank and Ryan located the heinous creature grinding on some guy with blonde, curly hair and a letterman jacket to the tune of some song that was more computer than soul.

 

“Aye!” Frank called to her. “Britney!”

 

“It’s Britney, Bitch!” she slurred, laughing hard as she draped herself over the piece of dick she was dancing with. “Britneeeeeeey.”

 

“That’s what I said, Dumb Ass.” Frank was already done with her shit, and he hadn’t even been in her vicinity for three seconds. “Look, have you seen Brendon? He’s a tall, skinny kid with dark hair that looks like it came straight out of 2005.”

 

“Do you know who I am?” she asked, pressing a drunken finger into Frank’s chest.

 

“You’re Britney-“

 

“I’m Britney, Bitch!”

 

Frank was going to cut her if she didn’t shut the fuck up.

 

“Britney, did you see where Brendon went?” Ryan asked, stepping in front of Frank before the neighbor boy lost his shit.

 

“Oh my God, Ryan!” she giggled, throwing her arms around Ryan in a clumsy hug. “I haven’t seen you in forever!”

 

“This is hopeless. She doesn’t know where Brendon is.” Frank was ready to just be done with her stupid ass.

 

“Yes, I do! I know everything. I’m-“

 

“You’re Britney, Bitch. We fucking know, Britney.”

 

“I think he went into one of the rooms with Chaz.”

 

Ryan went pale – or, at least paler than normal. “Frank,” he said, voice trembling. “We have to find Brendon _right now_!”

 

“Okay, okay.” Ryan was pulling Frank by the wrist, strong in his fear. “I’m coming.”

 

“Move your _ass_ , Frank!”

 

Frank stopped himself from responding with a, _“I’m moving my ass, Ryan. Shut up,”_ when he saw the utter terror in Ryan’s eyes. Now was not the time for sarcasm and general smart-assery.

 

 

 

They found Brendon passed out on the bed in Britney’s bedroom, a dick on his face. Not his dick, of course. The dick belonged to Chaz, a much larger dick that also played football. There was no time to further evaluate the situation. Frank was to busy hitting Chaz in the face, repeatedly, with the closest object he could find, which happened to be an alarm clock.

 

“What. The. FUCK.” He punctuated every word with a hit to the side of Chaz’s face. Then, when he’d beaten Chaz just short of killing him, he placed his last blow directly on the football player’s bare, naked penis.

 

The sound that Chaz made was barely registered as Frank helped Ryan carry Brendon to his mom’s car, holding one of Brendon’s arms while Ryan held the other.

 

It was a very quiet ride home.

 

 

 

Ryan and Frank carried Brendon  down into the basement and laid him on the bed there, tucking his lifeless body in with as much delicacy as their tired hands could muster. Then, they plopped down next to him, exhausted.

 

“He should be okay here,” Frank said. “My mom never comes in the basement.”

 

Frank didn’t know how Ryan had any energy to talk with how worn-out he looked, but the younger boy managed it. “Why?”

 

“My dad stayed down here when they were getting a divorce. The last time she came into the basement was after he left. She tried to change the sheets and ended up crying for three hours before I finally found her down here. Don’t worry, though. I’ve changed the sheets since then.” Frank must have been really tired if he was openly talking about his parents’ divorce. He checked the time on his phone. It was two in the morning.

 

To make things less awkward after his weird word-vomit, he added, “Anyway, it’s cool.”

 

Smooth.

 

Ryan didn’t seem to care about what Frank had said, though. He had other things he was worried about. “You’re not going to tell anyone, right? About what happened to Brendon?”

 

“I mean, ideally we’d tell the police about the attempted rape, but I’m pretty sure that I’d be the one getting arrested.” Frank ran a sleepy hand over his face, attempting to get the droopiness out of his eyelids. “You know, for beating the shit out of that guy.”

 

“That was pretty awesome.” Then, Ryan did something Frank had never seen him do before: he smiled.

 

“What the fuck?” Frank said, his filter severely impaired by his exhaustion. “You can smile? It doesn’t hurt your face?”

 

Ryan became very serious in an instant. “Look,” he said. “I’m going to say something, and I’m only going to say this because you weren’t a huge dick tonight and you came through for Brendon. Alright?”

 

Well, that got Frank’s attention. He nodded.

 

“I… I hated you because Brendon likes you and I didn’t want you to hurt him.” Ryan spoke so fast that it took Frank several seconds to pick the words apart and process them. “But, you’re not, like, evil or anything. So, I guess I’m saying that I won’t be a huge asshole to you if you, like, decide to go out with him. Or something.”

 

“Wait… you think I like Brendon? Like, that I’m into him?”

 

There was a red tint blossoming onto Ryan’s cheeks. “I mean, yeah. It’s _Brendon_.”

 

“I’m aware that it’s Brendon. That why I’m confused.”

 

“How could you not like him? He’s great.”

 

Frank had to think about that one. Sure, he’d only recently decided that he even liked Brendon as a person and hadn’t had a whole lot of time to develop feelings that were more than a general tolerance for his existence, but still. Brendon wasn’t, you know, _bad looking_. He was nice. He put up with Frank’s overall bitchiness. He was a good guy.

 

Then, Frank thought of red hair blowing in the breeze, framing hazel eyes as the wind flooded through the windows. He knew exactly why, even if he didn’t want to. The past could never die for Frank. It was always there, behind his eyes and just over his heart.

 

“There’s… someone,” he said. His filter wasn’t just impaired. It was fucking _gone._ “I just can’t seem to shake him. It kind of pisses me off that I’m not over it by now, honestly. But, uh, I’m not really sure I could like anyone else if I tried.”

 

Ryan gave Brendon the side-eye, unconvinced. “So, you don’t like Brendon.”

 

“No. He’s all yours.”

 

Ryan stood abruptly from the bed, mouth agape with indignation. “I don’t- I’m- What the _fuck_?”

 

“What? You’re, like, super in love with him.”

 

“ _I am not!_ ” he hissed, and then he looked to his sleeping friend to make sure he was still passed out, as though Brendon would wake up and call him a fag or something.

 

Frank put his hands up in mock surrender, too tired to argue with someone that far in the closet. “Okay,” he said. “Sorry.”

 

Ryan was not satisfied by this, but he closed his mouth anyway, exhaustion taking over.

 

“I’m gonna crash on the couch if you wanna stay here with Brendon. I dunno what they put in his drink, but he’s probably gonna be real upset when he wakes up. I have a feeling he’s gonna want you there.”

 

Ryan nodded once, laid down over the covers, and fell asleep immediately.

 

 

 

After had Frank turned out the basement lights but just before he went to sleep, he unlocked his phone and stared at Gerard’s contact for a good ten minutes.

 

 **I don’t hate you.** he typed, then deleted immediately.

 

 **I’m sorry for being a dick.** He deleted that, too.

 

Finally, he decided on a simple message and shut his phone off completely, afraid that Gerard would respond immediately but just as afraid that he wouldn’t reply at all.

 

The past would never die. Not when it still hurt so badly.

 

**We should talk.**

 

 

 

End of Act One.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You hear that? That's the sound of my suffering and yours combining to create a beautiful symphony of pain.
> 
> I'm not an adult. I'm a mistake.
> 
> Infinity War got me shooketh. I'm particularly antagonistic right now. I'd apologize, but I can feel nothing but grief and disappointment in the fact that I"m alive.
> 
> Drop me a comment, please and thank.
> 
> See you soon.


	4. Act Two, Scene One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS MENTIONS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT, DEPRESSION, SELF HARM, AND DRUG USE. HOWEVER BRIEF THESE MENTIONS MAY BE, I FEEL THE NEED TO WARN YOU THAT THEY ARE HERE AND MAY CAUSE PROBLEMS. READ WITH CAUTION*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, my dudes. I've gotten a lot of comments all like, "Hey! Update!" and honestly? Same. I wish I would do that. There were days where I'd literally sit there and be like, "I should do the thing." And then I wouldn't do it. That's how this got pushed back to June. Then, in July, my computer embraced the pattern that everything in my life follows and dove head first into the shit show! In other words, I lost my Microsoft office apps, and therefore had no way to access my work on my computer. It was, like, mid-July when I finally got that sorted out, but at that point, I only had half the chapter written, and it seemed like as good an excuse as any to just continue to blame Microsoft for my issues, so that's what I did in the comments. A lot of this has just been procrastination. Also, the first part of this chapter was hella hard to write, as a person who has experiences things unsavory in the world, and also as a person who is very close with people who have experienced similar unsavory things, if not to varying degrees of worse-ness. So, in other words, I'm an emotional bitch that procrastinates a lot and blames Microsoft for issues sometimes completely unrelated. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the chapter.
> 
> Oh, while I'm thinking about it, I'm really sorry to anyone who was accidentally triggered in any way by the last chapter. I completely forgot to tag for non-con, and I'm a piece of shit. I only remembered because my sister was like, "Hey, bitch. Tag for that." So, anyway, I'm a dumb cunt and I'm very, VERY sorry if anyone was triggered by my negligence.

Frank did not sleep well that night. The couch cushions creaked as he tossed and turned, desperately vying for sleep amidst all his worrying – for Brendon, of course, but also for his relationship with Gerard, which hinged on his response to the text that Frank had sent. He was restless, the little sleep he managed to achieve unfulfilling. When he woke up at seven in the morning to the hacking, gagging, spitting noises of Brendon vomiting in the bathroom, he felt more tired than he had been when he’d gone to sleep the night before.

 

He sat up groggily, his eyes heavy as he blinked them. His first thought was to wake up Ryan, but the bed was empty of both of its original occupants, so Ryan must have been in the bathroom with Brendon. Frank shoved himself off of the couch roughly, moving as quickly as his tired body would carry him to join the commotion in the restroom.

 

Brendon looked like shit, and that was the polite way of putting it. He clung to the toilet bowl for dear life, white knuckles and sweaty tee shirt coated with a thin layer of vomit. Tears ran down his reddened face as he sobbed between fits of heaving. The hair that he had so carefully straightened the night before had curled with the moisture of his sweat, standing up in odd angles over his forehead and at the back of his neck. He looked absolutely wrecked.

 

Ryan crouched behind him, whispering soft things as he rubbed gentle circles into his friend’s back. He had found a washcloth in one of the bathroom drawers and dampened it in the tap at some point. He alternated between brushing the hair from Brendon’s face and pressing the cloth to the back of Brendon’s neck. Ryan was calm and focused in a way that Frank had never seen before. It was like caring for Brendon was not only his sole purpose in life, but also the one things he did best in the world. That much might have been true.

 

The bathroom was crowded with just the two of them and Frank felt awkward just watching from the doorway. Finding himself ultimately useless, he went upstairs under the guise of getting Brendon some water, even though the real purpose of the action was just to give himself something to do.

 

 

 

When Brendon’s puking slowed to a stop, Ryan and Frank stripped him of his vomit-soaked shirt, cleaned him off as best they could, and put him back to bed. Brendon fell asleep immediately.

 

Ryan and Frank flopped onto the couch, exhausted. The sophomore carefully tucked his knees beneath his chin, carefully hugging his legs to his body as though he were holding himself together. He looked absolutely miserable.

 

It was at that moment that Frank’s sleep addled brain decided it was a good time to ask the question he’d been pondering all night. “How should we tell him?” he asked, his voice a whisper in an effort not to wake Brendon.

 

“Tell him what?” Ryan’s voice was hushed more from exhaustion than the need to respect his friend’s sleeping and his eyes could hardly stay open.

 

“You know…” Frank began, though it was increasingly evident that Ryan did not know. “How do we tell him what happened. Or, almost happened, I guess.”

 

Ryan scrubbed a hand across his tired eyes and breathed in deeply. “I don’t know,” he said. He turned his head so that his cheek was resting on his knee and his face was towards Frank. “What if Chaz did something to Brendon that we didn’t see? Should we take him to the hospital, or something? They have rape tests, right?”

 

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure I saw something like that on an episode of __SVU__  once.” Frank yawned and let his head rest against the back of the couch. “It should be up to Brendon. He was the one with that asshole’s dick on his face. He deserves the right to choose what happens.”

 

“I’m just worried he’s gonna be hysterical when he wakes up. He might have trouble making a decision, especially since it was Chaz.”

 

“What does that mean?”

 

Ryan moved his head so that his chin was resting on his knees again and fiddled with his toes. “Brendon kinda had a thing for him. It was the beginning of freshman year and Chaz was on the football team and Brendon really liked the tight shorts on him. Anyway, it didn’t end well.”

 

“What happened?”

 

Ryan yawned. “He called Brendon a fag and threatened to hurt him.”

 

Were Frank fully rested and not completely exhausted, he might have gotten worked up. Instead, he asked, “If he’s such a fucking homophobe, then why-“

 

“He’s not a homophobe,” Ryan corrected, and paused to yawn. “His mom is a homophobe. He’s a closeted gay person pretending to be a homophobe.”

 

Frank blinked a few times, trying to process the information with is sleep-deprived brain. “Are you sure?” he asked, and then he yawned again.

 

“Yeah, pretty sure,” Ryan said. He stretched once, put his feet on the ground, and let his head loll on the back of the couch, facing Frank. “I was watching off to the side when it happened. Just to make sure Brendon was okay, right? So, Brendon went up to him and basically said that he liked Chaz and wanted to go out some time. The dude flipped __shit__. He got really mad and was all, ‘I’m not a fag like you,’ and, ‘I should beat the shit out of you for even __suggesting__  that.’ But it was weird. He had this, like, panic in his eyes. It was like… I dunno. It was kind of like he thought Brendon had realized that he was gay and that was why Brendon was asking him out, or something.”

 

“Was Brendon okay?”

 

“He cried really hard for a month. I honestly wish it had been me that got to beat that mother fucker with an alarm clock.”

 

Frank smiled a tired smile and closed his eyes, feeling the welcoming embrace of sleep coming on. “Yeah, well,” he mumbled. “I wish I had known all that before. I might have taken the time to enjoy it more.”

 

 

 

Brendon opened his eyes to the basement close to eleven. His head was pounding through his skull and into the meaty flesh of his brain, but he got the feeling it wasn’t entirely because of his hang over – though a good portion of his pain was probably to do with it. There was a distinct memory of a conversation between Frank and Ryan that he’d overheard, limbs to tired to move but head too wired to sleep immediately. As he sat up slowly and reached for the water on the nightstand beside him, he let the information wash over him.

 

He could remember the senior kids handing him drinks, laughing as he consumed without question. He remembered his vision becoming blurry and his mind getting fuzzy. He remembered a voice, low and gruff with hatred just audible over the loud music, right in his ear with the word, “Fag.” He remembered being gripped by the back of the neck, not strong enough to pry the hands that were pulling him up the stairs off his body. Things became darker and out of focus. He remembered sensations, like that of a comforter beneath him. He remembered hot breath and a hand on his more private areas, kneading roughly. He remembered something warm and damp on his face. He remembered shouting. Then, there was nothing.

 

Brendon drank his water almost robotically. He recognized that his headache wouldn’t get any better if he was dehydrated, so he consumed out of sheer necessity. He was barely conscious of it as he swallowed mechanically and stiffly returned the glass to the nightstand.

 

In his head, he kept hearing the conversation between his friends over and over. It was on a loop, and it wouldn’t stop. Brendon lied back onto the pillows and closed his eyes, but that just made things louder. He stared at the blank white ceiling instead, praying that it would all just get quiet.

 

It didn’t get quiet. He stared at the ceiling for a long time.

 

 

 

Around noon, Ryan peered through stiff eyes into the basement around him. He’d been so focused on sleeping, and then on Brendon, and then on sleeping again, that he had hardly recognized where he was when he first woke up.

 

The basement was nice. There was a TV in the corner of the room, the couch that Frank was sleeping on directly parallel to it. On the right of the bed were two doors, one to the bathroom that Ryan had seen earlier, and one to what Ryan assumed was probably a closet.

 

As there wasn’t much to the basement for Ryan to take in, he turned his attention to Brendon – who he had assumed was still asleep. Ryan found that this was not the case. Brendon was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling and hardly blinking when Ryan turned over to look at him.

 

“Hey,” he said, his voice a gruff whisper, ravaged by what seemed like an endless night of restless sleep.

 

Brendon blinked a few times, as though he were just remembering that there were other people in the room. “Hi,” he replied. He kept his eyes on the ceiling.

 

“You okay?” Ryan knew the answer was “no”. Brendon could hardly ever sit still long enough to do anything, let alone quietly stare at a ceiling. Something was up.

 

Brendon acted as though his thoughts were far away. “Yeah,” he replied simply. “I’m fine.”

 

He sure as hell was not fine.

 

“But, B- “

 

“I’m fine, Ryan.” Then, he turned over, facing away from Ryan and his questions.

 

Ryan reached out a hand, as though to touch his friend, turn him around, make him tell the truth. His hand just stayed there, however, unmoving. Something was very, very wrong with Brendon. Maybe he didn’t want to be touched.

 

Quietly and carefully, so as not to disturb Brendon too much, Ryan kicked the blankets from his body. Then, with near-silent footsteps, he clumsily jogged over to where Frank was sleeping on the couch across the room.

 

“Frank,” he hissed, poking his friend in the side.

 

Frank swatted his hand away sleepily and mumbled something that sounded vaguely like, “Fuck off.”

 

Ryan was undeterred. “Frank,” he whispered, more determined this time, but still quiet enough that maybe Brendon wouldn’t hear. “Frank, wake up.”

 

“Wha d’you wan, Ryan?” Frank muttered into the couch cushion.

 

“Brendon’s awake.”

 

“Cool.”

 

“Frank, I’m really worried about him.”

 

“He’s prolly just hungover.”

 

“He was staring at the ceiling when I woke up.”

 

Frank cracked open one of his eyes and turned over onto his back. There was confusion in his drowsy eyes as he looked up at Ryan. “What?”

 

“He was just lying there, staring at the ceiling.”

 

Frank sat up reluctantly and looked over the back of the couch to where Brendon was lying on his side, blankets pulled up over his ears. “Hey, Brendon?” he called.

 

Brendon’s voice was so nearby, but it sounded far off all the same. “Yeah?”

 

“How’re you feeling?”

 

“Fine, I guess.”

 

Ryan made eye contact with Frank, urgency plain in the brown of his eyes as Frank’s own hazel started to come into focus. Brendon was never this calm. There was something very wrong.

 

Frank stood on stiff legs and made his way over to the bed, where he sat rigidly next to Brendon’s feet. Ryan hovered behind him, uncertain.

 

“What do you remember about last night?” Frank asked softly, not lost to the delicacy of the situation.

 

Brendon was very quiet.

 

“Brendon?” Ryan asked. “Do you remember anything?”

 

“No,” Brendon replied, his voice void of emotion. “We were at the party and then I woke up here.”

 

Ryan sat down next to Brendon carefully, as not to shake the bed and disturb his friend’s position too much. “Well…” he said. “Something happened. Or, almost happened. I guess.”

 

Brendon said nothing and remained very quiet.

 

“You were passed out,” Ryan continued. “And Chaz… he was not passed out. And he had some intentions that Frank put a stop to by beating him half to death with an alarm clock.”

 

Frank almost expected Brendon to smile at that, but he didn’t. Brendon didn’t do anything. He didn’t even react. “What were his intentions?” he asked quietly.

 

Ryan couldn’t bring himself to say it. He looked at Frank pleadingly, silently asking for help.

 

“We…we think he was going to, uh… hurt you,” Frank said, experimentally.

 

“Hurt me how?”

 

“Uh, sexually.”

 

Brendon still withheld a reaction, and Ryan and Frank shared a worried look.

 

“Do you want to go to the police?” Ryan asked him.

 

“What for? You said Frank took care of it.” Brendon sounded so __wrong__ , so __unfeeling__. It was really starting to scare Ryan, and Frank could see as much in the lines on the sophomore boy’s forehead. “Won’t make much of a difference, anyway, if nothing happened.”

 

“Well, we aren’t sure. It took us a little bit to find you. Maybe we should take you to the hospital and get some tests done, just to- “

 

“I don’t want to go to the hospital,” Brendon cut him off. “Nothing happened.”

 

“We don’t know that for sure,” Frank supplied. “Maybe we should check.”

 

“I don’t want to go to the hospital,” Brendon repeated. “I’m fine.”

 

 

 

When Brendon and Ryan left around one in the afternoon, Frank didn’t know what to do with himself. He was nervous, partially because of the way Brendon had started acting, all quiet and almost hostile towards Ryan’s attempts to get him to talk, and partially because he still hadn’t checked his phone. What if Gerard responded? What if he __didn’t__  respond? What then?

 

Frank wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel about Gerard. On the one hand, the way Gerard had treated him was complete shit, but on the other hand, he couldn’t stop thinking about that stupid red hair, those stupid hazel eyes, the way he threw his head back when he laughed, how his smile would light up his whole face, how understanding his hands were against Frank’s face. He didn’t want to forgive or let Gerard back in, but he couldn’t __not__  think about him. He had reappeared. He was in Frank’s life again. Frank would have to find a way to deal with it.

 

To distract himself, Frank started cleaning. He changed the sheets on the bed in the basement, thoroughly washed away any traces of Brendon’s vomit from the toilet, and then folded up the blankets he’d used when he slept on the couch. Once all of that was done, Frank was still fidgety, so he went upstairs and tried to practice with his guitar. His fingers wouldn’t cooperate, so eventually he resigned himself to watching shitty horror movies on his laptop, nervously checking his phone screen every few minutes even though he knew that his phone was off.

 

At around three on Sunday morning, Frank finally caved and turned his phone on. He stared nervously, his heart pounding in his chest as he waited for it to wake up and process all the alerts he’d missed while it was off. It took about thirty seconds for his phone to buzz, notifying him of a text from Gerard.

 

Frank opened his messaging app, painfully biting at his lower lip. At two in the morning on Saturday, Frank had said, ****We should talk****. At three in the morning on Sunday, Frank’s phone had finally processed Gerard’s response, which was simply, ****Okay****. Frank wasn’t sure when it had been sent, since his phone had only just received it when it was once again turned on, but it was a response and that was something. A good or bad something, Frank wasn’t sure, but it was definitely something.

 

~

 

During Frank’s eighth hour class period on Monday, Gerard acted odd.

 

When Frank entered the room just before the bell, his eyes were immediately drawn to the elder Way brother, who was sitting behind his desk, carefully focused on writing something out in front of him. He stayed seated at his desk the entire hour, not once bothering to walk around and check on the progress of the projects like he usually did, and he only smiled once throughout the entire period when Britney told him that he looked nice. He didn’t even seem to be aware that Frank was in the same room.

 

There was a half-formed expectation in Frank’s stomach that maybe Gerard would say something to him when the bell rang, but the elder Way brother remained focused on whatever he was working on, not even bothering to look up as his students filed out of the room for the day.

 

Frank chose not to push him to talk, deciding that Gerard’s simple, “Okay,” the night before must have really meant, “Please give me space.”

 

 

 

Practice dragged on more slowly than usual, Frank more focused on the things turning over in his mind than his surroundings. It was supposed to be their last read-through before they started stage rehearsals, but the whole ordeal of sitting in a circle of desks and reciting lines was entirely monotonous at that point. Frank had his lines memorized, anyway, and probably most of everyone else’s lines, as well. They’d been doing this every day after school for close to two months, after all.

 

Brendon bolted as soon as practice ended, and Ryan ran after him. Apparently, Frank was walking home by himself. He might have been less irritated if not for the fact that he had sort of assumed that that was their new thing. Evidently, he was wrong, and he tried not to be disappointed by that as he made his way out the front doors of the school by himself.

 

The first thing Frank noticed – besides the wind bitch slapping him upside the head as he stepped out into the cold – was the black Camry pulled up to the curb in front of the school. The second thing he noticed was that Gerard was leaning against it, arms crossed stubbornly against the wind. His expression was that of careful blankness. Frank wondered idly how long he’d been waiting.

 

Gerard opened the passenger side door that he’d been leaning on and said, “Get in.” He sounded tired and put upon, much to Frank’s immediate annoyance.

 

“Why?” Frank asked, irritation evident in his tone as he crossed his own arms across his chest, protective of the heart racing inside.

 

“You said you wanted to talk,” Gerard said, gesturing to the car. “I don’t want to talk here.”

 

Frank raised an eyebrow in what he hoped to be a look of indignance. “Where did you have in mind, then?”

 

“My place.”

 

“I don’t want to go to your place,” Frank said, adamant. “I wouldn’t be able to leave if I got upset.”

 

“Where do you suggest, then?”

 

Frank thought for a moment, and then immediately regretted his offer as soon as it left his mouth: “We can go to my house. Mom is working late tonight.”

 

Gerard nodded once, a thoughtful look on his face. “Alright,” he said. Then, he walked around the front of the Camry to get in on the driver’s side.

 

Frank reluctantly slid into the passenger side, nervously settling in to the faux leather seats. This was quite possibly going to be the most uncomfortable experience of the entirety of Frank’s eighteen years of life.

 

 

 

Frank fumbled with his keys anxiously as he tried to unlock the front door. He might have already had the damn thing open if not for the way that Gerard was staring at the back of his head, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that. Frank may not have been well versed in the art of socializing, but he was pretty sure that yelling at someone for looking at him wasn’t the way to start a conversation about the state of their relationship.

 

When the door was finally open, he shoved his keys roughly into the front pocket of his jeans and moved aside politely so that Gerard could walk past him and enter, then dropped his backpack by the door, the heavy burden landing with a thud. The elder Way brother jumped at the noise. He was nervous, too, Frank realized. That made two of them.

 

Frank made his way into the kitchen, Gerard following silently, the soft echo of his footfalls filling the silence of the empty house. It was almost eerie. He pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and sat down heavily, his limbs leaden with the prospect of an uncomfortable conversation. He watched quietly as Gerard leaned against the counter, waiting patiently for him to say something. Or, was Frank supposed to talk first? Sure, it was his house, but what was he supposed to say? Oh, __God__ , he hadn’t even thought about what he was going to-

 

“I’ve been thinking,” Gerard said, abruptly breaking through Frank’s internal panic and scattering the thick silence that had fallen between them. “You, uh… You deserve to know __why__.” Frank must have looked about as confused as he felt, because Gerard quickly elaborated, “Uh, I mean, why I - why I kinda… stopped talking, I guess.”

 

There was an actual reason? No way. Frank steeled himself, prepared to be bombarded with a bullshit excuse. He had learned to be skeptical.

 

Gerard took a deep breath. “Do you remember when my Grandma died?”

 

Frank nodded in the affirmative.

 

“Well, I don’t know how much you were aware of when I was still living at home, but things hadn’t been great before then. I mean, my home life was fine, obviously. You know that. But I wasn’t doing so great. I had some issues with… with my weight and sexuality. For most of high school, actually. It was just so much worse after she died. I was already getting made fun of a lot, and I was sad. Very sad.” The elder Way brother closed his eyes tightly and crossed his arms over his chest, protecting himself from what he was about to say next. “I started having, uh, __issues__. With hurting myself. It was stupid, but, I don’t know, I thought it made me feel better. It just made things worse. I, uh, started to think that maybe - maybe living wasn’t for me.”

 

There was a twisting feeling in Frank’s gut. Gerard had __hurt himself__? He’d been __suicidal__?There was no way that could be true. He was __Gerard__. He was always looking for things that made him happy. This had to be some kind of elaborate lie.

 

The discomfort was almost tangible in Gerard’s voice as he continued speaking. “I was going through the motions for most of my senior year. I went to school, I did my homework, I drew my pictures… I thought it would be better when I went to college, but even if nobody cared that I was kinda chubby and wore skirts sometimes, I was still really sad.” He scrubbed a hand over the stubble on his chin, the faint, sandpaper sound audible in the momentary silence between them. “I was so, __so__  tired. Like, all the time. I was too tired to eat, too tired to move. Fuck- “ he inhaled abruptly, “-I was too tired to sleep half the time. I barely left my bed. I stopped going to class, stopped answering my phone. I was just… withering away.”

 

Frank became intensely interested with his own hands in his lap, tugging nervously on his fingers in a half-assed attempt to pop them, just looking for something to focus on besides the heavy silence falling over the kitchen. Gerard had looked so small, shoulders hunched in on himself and eyes cast down as he desperately sought the words that might make his childhood friend hate him a little less.

 

“I met Bert at a party,” he admitted eventually, something akin to embarrassment lying just beneath his words. “My roommate convinced me to go out to a party with them and I got stupid drunk stupidly fast. We were both pretty fucked up, actually, but I guess I just needed somebody. We hooked up that night, and then a few more times. Our relationship was simple, I guess.” When Frank risked a peek up at the elder Way brother, he noticed a frown tugging at the corners of the older man’s eyes, discomfort biting viciously into the softness there. “Eventually, we started going out. It was nice, at first, just to be with someone, but it got unhealthy really fast. I ignored everything just to spend time with him. I mean, my grades hadn’t been great to begin with, but they got even worse when I started dating Bert. It was like I could never seem to focus on anything besides him. Plus, it didn’t help that we spent most of our time together doing stupid shit, like drinking excessively to the point that neither of us could walk in a straight line the next day. We got into a lot of trouble together. And – and then…” His eyelids were clenched shut around the words he was picturing in his head, his mouth fighting an epic battle with his brain as to whether or not he’d be able to say what it was that was bothering him so much. “And then,” he said, taking in a sharp breath as though he needed the extra air to take up room and force the words out. “And then cocaine.”

 

The word was simple, but it’s impact was immediate. Frank blinked wildly, his expression blank and his stomach sick. Did Gerard just say __cocaine__?

 

“It was… it was kinda a sex thing,” Gerard forced himself to explain, the words sounding pained as they came out of his mouth. “We’d get high and then- “

 

Frank covered his ears on reflex. “I really, __really__  don’t want to know,” he insisted. He didn’t remove his hands until he could see for sure that Gerard was no longer talking about his previous sex life.

 

“I lost a crazy amount of weight,” Gerard continued, shame on his shoulders so heavy that it looked like he was being pulled towards the ground by his hands. “I couldn’t sleep, and I felt like complete shit without it, too. I was terrified. It was probably November of my second year in college before I realized I was addicted.”

 

Gerard pulled the ring from his thumb and turned it over in his palm. If Frank had been retaining any protective skepticism up to that point, it disappeared as soon as he locked eyes with Gerard and saw the sadness there – the complete and utter mortification – before he looked away. If there were two things that Frank knew in life, they were sadness, and also that eyes were the trickiest part of the face to coach into a lie, let alone a lie as convincing as sadness. Gerard was no actor. He was being honest.

 

“I told Bert I wanted to stop,” the elder Way brother continued softly, voice tired as the stress from the hardest part of his confession slowed. “He didn’t think we had a problem. As it happens, it’s really, __really__  hard to get clean when you live with someone who’s using. So, we broke up and I moved in with my old roommate – the one that took me to the party where I met Bert. I guess he felt bad about how it turned out or something, but whatever the reason, he let me stay on his couch while I went through withdrawal over Christmas break.”

 

The sound of shoes scuffing against the tile floor made Frank look up again, and he found that Gerard was rubbing his shoes into the ground, staring at them with a strange expression on his face. When their eyes met again, Frank recognized the expression as shyness – fucking __shyness�__. The guy tried to talk about his sex life. If he wasn’t shy about that, what did he have to be shy about?

 

“I didn’t want anyone to know,” he said, his voice barely steady as he bore into Frank’s skull with his eyes. “I still don’t, actually. I – I stayed away as much as I could without drawing too much suspicion, and by then that was normal for me, so it went mostly unnoticed. I thought that if I kept to myself and never told anyone, things could go back to the way they were before.” He ran his fingers through his hair roughly, suddenly breaking the hold he’d had over Frank as he moved his eyes back to the floor. “It wasn’t really until I finished my student teaching and moved back to town that it really occurred to me how much things weren’t okay. I mean, I thought my mom would be pumped that I was back, but she was mostly just mad that I didn’t tell her I was moving. And, of course, things between us are pretty…not good, I guess.” He sighed deeply. “I didn’t realize just how much I’d alienated my entire family.”

 

It was almost like seeing someone for the first time. Frank took everything in, from the fidgeting, nervous energy as Gerard fussed with his vest to the way his vibrant red hair almost seemed to dull sadly. He was a complete and total asshole, sure, but he was a __hurt__  complete and total asshole, and somehow understanding that made things sharper – more detailed. There was a subtle shake to the elder Way brother’s hands as he picked at something he must have gotten stuck to his pants at lunch, and his lips were bitten into and raw. There were dark circles under his eyes from what looked to be about as many sleepless nights as Frank had had. It took all the will power inside of Frank’s body to not forgive him right then and there like the pathetic little kid that the elder Way brother always managed to make him feel like.

 

Frank waited a few seconds to make sure Gerard was finished talking, but it soon became apparent that he was finished. He didn’t even know what to say, but he found his mouth opening and pressing out, “That’s not what I was expecting.” His tone was soft – more careful and gentle than it had been in a long time. “I guess that makes more sense than you just being a flaky fuck.”

 

Gerard looked at Frank through his eyelashes, deflated from holding up the weight of his confession. “Yeah,” he agreed simply. Frank could have sworn there was hope hiding just behind his teeth as he spoke.

 

“You should have talked to someone,” Frank said, Danny Tanner speaking through him from the depths of Frank’s subconscious where he housed all his childhood memories of days spent sick in bed, watching __Full House__ reruns. “Your mom, Mikey… I wish you would have talked to me.”

 

“You were still a kid. I didn’t want to put any of that on you. I didn’t anyone to have to deal with my fuck ups.” He rubbed the palms of his hands into his eyes and bitterly muttered, “Evidently, least of all __me__.”

 

Frank surprised himself when he heard his own voice, calm and almost tender, say, “I just… I missed you.” He quickly tried to recover his dignity by adding, “We all did.”

 

The responding question was careful, almost fragile in the air between them. “But not anymore?”

 

Frank didn’t know how to answer that, so he attempted to navigate his words cautiously. “I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’ve spent the greater part of about two years trying not to miss you anymore. I was trying __not__  to pine. I thought I was over…” Frank threw his hands up around him, irritated at not being able to figure out what he wanted to say before giving up entirely on being cautious. “You, I guess. I thought I was over you. I thought I was over wanting you in my life.”

 

“And now?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

Gerard hesitated, his lips parted for words that wouldn’t come immediately, and it took him several seconds before he finally said, “I didn’t know you felt that way. About me, I mean. I didn’t know you, uh, liked me like that.”

 

There was an effort to be nonchalant, Frank shrugging and casually dragging his eyes back into his lap, tugging at a loose string over one of the holes in his jeans. “It wasn’t like I was advertising it. But, yeah. It was a dumb crush. I’m over it now. It’s whatever.”

 

It was a severe understatement, but Gerard didn’t call him on it. That was probably because he had no idea to what extent Frank had been weirdly, hopelessly devoted, but whatever. At least he wasn’t pushing it.

 

Footsteps rattled through the eerily silent home as Gerard stepped forward, carefully approaching where Frank was sat. “I never, ever wanted to hurt you,” he promised, his voice so near. Frank looked up automatically and watched as the elder Way brother knelt in front of him, a few inches of space between them to prevent physical contact. “I’m so, __so__  sorry, Frank.”

 

For a moment, Frank thought that he was going to tell Gerard that he was forgiven, just like that. His heart was beating wildly in his chest and he could feel his face burning. There was no control to be had over the situation. He was tempted to just let it go and move on, simply so that it could be over.

 

Except, he couldn’t do that. Maybe Gerard was sorry, but that didn’t erase the nights Frank had stayed up crying, distraught at not being enough – at not meaning __anything__ to the one person who meant __everything__. Maybe that had never truly been the case, but it had still felt like that for a long time. That pain was sewn into his heart like some kind of Frankenstein-esque extra limb and he couldn’t just rip it out. He needed to cut the stitches in his own time, or something like that.

 

“I know that you’re sorry,” Frank eventually said. “I know you are. But things can’t just go back to how they were before.” He pressed his fingers into his eyes and rubbed until he could see red splotches in the darkness behind his eyelids. “I just need some time, okay?”

 

“Are you sure there isn’t anything I can do to make it up to you? Anything?” Gerard was playing with his ring again, pulling it on and off his thumb absentmindedly as his voice took on a tone of desperation. “I just… I don’t want it to end like this.”

The weird, extra limb of pain in Frank’s chest punched him in the ribs, and Frank became acutely aware of how he wanted that thing gone. He needed to be alone. He needed to figure himself out.

 

“Our friendship already ended,” Frank whispered, eyes watering with the pain in his chest and __nothing else__. “It ended a long time ago. What you’re asking me to do is resurrect something that died and died horribly. I know you’ve seen __Pet Cemetery__. You know how badly that could go.”

 

Frank wasn’t trying to be funny, but Gerard smiled a little anyway. “I really, __really__  want to try,” he said, his face all sweet and endearing. He had already won, and he knew it. Frank was going to give in. It was like he was a kid again, transfixed by the way things just felt __better__  when Gerard was around.

 

The only difference was that it didn’t feel better at that moment. It felt pretty shitty, his heart-limb beating the shit out of him from the inside, desperate to remind Frank exactly why he __shouldn’t__  forgive.

 

Gerard reached out with tentative fingers and carefully wiped something wet from the neighbor boy’s cheek. The pain in his chest revolted and threw out one last effort to throw him.

 

“You kept in touch with Mikey,” Frank blurted out. “You still talked to your parents. Why didn’t you talk to me?”

 

“I talked to them because I had to, or they would have driven all the way to my college just to check on me, and I didn’t want that. And, I guess I figured Mikey would relay anything I said back to you, anyway. Frankie, please believe me. If I’d known how much I was hurting you, I never would have acted that way. I mean, I would have tried harder, I guess. I just didn’t think. It was never anything personally against you.”

 

“It felt personal,” he choked out.

 

The traitor tears were really pouring now, his chest aching like he was being stabbed from the inside out and a torrent of information being thrown at him, completely reshaping how he’d seen Gerard for the passed few years. It was too much. Everything was happening too much.

 

Gerard pressed his thumbs to the wetness under Frank’s eyes, almost as though he couldn’t refrain from the old habit. That’s what he did when Frank cried. That’s what he was supposed to do. He pressed his fingers to Frank’s neck, the heat of his hands cupping the neighbor boy’s face adding redness to already-flushed flesh. “I’ve severely fucked this up. How I was acting, all of that shit I did to distance myself – none of that was your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

 

Maybe, under different circumstances, were Frank not having what felt like an anxiety attack and crying like a little kid, he might have pushed Gerard away again. Maybe he would have thrown a fit, kicked the guy out of his house, let go once and for all. However, there weren’t different circumstances, so instead, Frank leaned into the touch just like he used to. He let himself be hushed, let himself be pulled into a hug, let himself bury his face in Gerard’s shoulder. He allowed hands to rub his back softly, allowed his heart-limb to be restrained, allowed himself to stop thinking just long enough to be comfortable in those arms again.

 

“Give me a chance and I’ll make this up to you, Frankie,” Gerard said into his ear. “Let me prove that I’m sorry and – and I won’t let you down again.”

 

Frank shook his head pitifully against the elder Way brother’s shoulder. “Don’t say that. You can’t keep a promise like that.”

 

“I can and I will.” Gerard was determined. “Promise me you’ll let me try.”

 

Frank shook his head again, and Gerard pulled back, once again cupping Frank’s face – this time to force eye contact. “Promise me.”

 

Frank did not want to make that promise. He wanted to curl into bed and hide. He wanted to fold himself into Gerard’s arms and cease to exist. His lips, once again, betrayed him, choking out a broken, “I promise.”

 

Gerard enveloped Frank in his arms again, much to the neighbor boy’s immediate relief and ensuing self-hatred. It was with extreme effort that Frank eventually managed to plead, “Don’t you dare make a fool out of me. Don’t make me the moron that believed you when you said you were sorry. Don’t make me get invested just for you to leave again.”

 

“I won’t,” Gerard said. Then, he was the one to whisper, “I promise.”

 

 

 

There’s something very __odd__  about getting exactly what you want, but only after you’ve stopped wanting it. It was almost as though the universe hadn’t received Frank’s messages – hadn’t checked it’s voicemail, hadn’t read any of its emails, whatever – until just recently, and since Frank had never sent any follow up messages to let the universe know he was done with Gerard and his stupid perfection, the universe didn’t know not to interfere.

 

Speckled over Frank’s adolescence like a fine layer of snow were moments of hope, moments when Frank hoped beyond all hope despite himself, that there was a reason for Gerard’s distance. He had prayed some, now and then, even though he wasn’t particularly religious, that there was a way to fix whatever he had broken when he wasn’t paying attention. God didn’t have any answer, and hoping wasn’t really working out, so Frank gave up. Frank always gave up. Giving up was easy, painless. Maybe he shouldn’t have given up, at least on the friendship part. Maybe he should have tried harder, called more. Maybe Gerard would have picked up eventually. Maybe __he__  was the one who let Gerard down.

 

Frank didn’t want to think about it.

 

He was sat on the edge of his bed, exactly in the place he’d been when he’d sobbed relentlessly, ceaselessly, gut-wrenchingly painfully, fists shoved into his eyes to stop himself from crying over his unrequited love. He was trying not to think, and that was easy enough since thinking took a lot of effort. Every single thought was a hamster on a track, running towards nothing and spending energy he didn’t have. Instead, he just stared at the wall.

 

Eventually, Linda came home. Frank could hear her shower running, hear her heavy footfalls and she moved around, turning off lights and locking doors before she went to bed. Frank should have gone to bed. His eyes wouldn’t close.

 

His cheeks were itchy from unchecked tears. His hands were leaden, unable to lift themselves and scratch at the dried salt water. His legs were essentially liquified. He couldn’t move to change from his school clothes, couldn’t shift to get more comfortable on the edge of the bed. Frank just stared at the wall, trying not to think, trying not to be guilty, trying not to forgive. Why was he trying? Why did he do anything? He was all cried out, too exhausted to have answers.

 

~

 

Frank’s face felt heavy, like the barely-there thoughts inside his head were pressuring the flesh on the outside. He wasn’t sure if he’d managed to sleep at all, simply opening his eyes when his alarm went off. He was somehow laying down, unsure how he’d ended up in that position, still in his school clothes.

 

He felt tired. He felt nothing. He felt so much that he couldn’t process it all.

 

Gerard handed Frank a cup of coffee as he passed by the art classroom. Frank hadn’t even seen him standing in the doorway, so lost in thought, and he didn’t even recognize what he was being presented with for several seconds.

 

“It’s cold out,” Gerard stated simply, smiling gently and shrugging his shoulders slightly. “I thought you might need this.”

 

Frank looked at him, __really__  looked at him. His bleary eyes took into calm, murky hazel ones, framed by an unending softness and fading red hair. Frank looked as hard as he could. He didn’t know what he was seeing.

 

Eventually, he accepted the coffee with a small nod and a polite “thank you”. Gerard shrugged it off, said it was no problem, smiled once more, and turned to go back into his classroom.

 

Frank watched him walk away, vision blurry from lack of sleep. He still didn’t know what he was seeing.

 

 

 

Stage practices began tediously. It seemed that the objective, first and foremost, was to figure out how wide to open the curtains and where the furniture should go – when they got furniture, that is. They ran through scenes slowly, sometimes interrupted mid-line so that Mrs. Carlisle could ask the cast to move over __just a skootch__  to the left or __a teeny bit__  to the right, and then someone from the stage crew would come forward with white tape and a sharpie and make a note. Mrs. Carlisle called it “blocking”. To Frank, it seemed more like she was just being a perfectionist. Whatever her motives, it was taking forever to run through the scenes.

 

Frank spent most of his time during practice being grumpy and tired, so it took him a bit longer than it might have normally to notice Brendon sitting by himself backstage, partially obscured by a set of prop stairs. His arms were wrapped around his torso protectively, his shoulders hunched and his hair shrouding part of his face, but even behind a wall of overly-straightened hair, Frank could tell that Brendon was watching what was happening on stage.

 

It was the fourth scene in Act One, and on stage were the long-hair-and-fedora guy from auditions, who was apparently named Patrick, the vampire girl from Frank’s art class, who was named Amy, and Ryan. Ryan’s character, Finn, had been discovered as a homosexual by his father and was sent to a conversion camp run by the church, run by the Reverend McCarty, and his wife, Maria, portrayed by Patrick and Amy respectively. Throughout the course of the scene, they essentially pressure Finn into denouncing his homosexuality through the fear of God, resulting in Finn breaking things off with Jack in the next scene. It was a mostly music-oriented scene, but Mrs. Carlisle said she was saving choreography for next week, so she focused instead on blocking the parts with dialogue. It didn’t make a lot of sense to Frank, but he wasn’t in charge, so he said nothing.

 

Brendon didn’t say anything when Frank sat down beside him. He didn’t even look at Frank, instead focusing on the stage. It was like he was staring at Ryan, but that didn’t make much sense, considering how he’d spent the last two days avoiding Ryan, even going as far as moving seats on the bus and wearing chunky, off-brand headphones to drown out any attempts at conversation.

 

It was because Brendon seemed so averse to talking that Frank didn’t bother trying to start a conversation when he sat down. They just watched on in silence. If Brendon wanted to talk, he would talk. Frank knew from recent experience that forcing a conversation could sometimes be more painful than any silence. Besides, Frank was tired as fuck and the last thing he needed to be doing was attempting a heart to heart on an unknown – but undoubtedly miniscule – amount of sleep with someone who was actively avoiding those kinds of conversations.

 

They remained in silence until Brendon was called back onto the stage for the next scene, but that was just as well. Silence had healing properties, too, but probably only in small doses.

 

~

 

Frank didn’t know what to do for his self-portrait, besides that it obviously had to have an image of himself somewhere. Sure, he could do something basic, like implanting himself in a fantasy world with dragons or depicting himself floating in amongst the stars, but that was almost standard for creativity. Everyone in the class was going to do something like that. He wanted to be different.

 

No – he wanted to be __honest__. And, honestly? He was coming apart at the corners, at the edges, at the seams, essentially held together with coffee and sarcasm. The only true thing about him that people knew was that he was short and bitter and didn’t interact much with other people.

 

He began a rough outline of his likeness based on a picture that Mikey had taken of him when he was home for Frank’s birthday. In the photo, he’s lying on his side on his bed, his legs pulled to his chest and his arms wrapped around them as he smiled, soft and endeared by a friend out of frame. He decided, in an effort to be entirely, recklessly candid, to also draw simple outlines of some tombstones.

 

 

 

Mrs. Carlisle announced it beforehand, luckily enough. She unwittingly gave Frank a few moments to prepare.

 

“I’ve asked Mr. Way to help with the sets,” she declared. The majority of the Drama Club was gathered in her classroom, waiting for the last member – Brendon – to arrive so that they could all walk down to the theater as a group. “He’s doing me a big favor by helping out with this, so I expect you all to be extra respectful and stay out of his way unless he specifically asks for help. I don’t want to inconvenience him any more than I already am. Does everyone understand?”

 

There was a general rumble of agreement and, when a meek and quietly apologetic Brendon arrived a few minutes later, the group headed for the theater.

 

Frank was nervous. He had no real reason to be nervous, of course. It was just Gerard, after all, and he hadn’t done anything concerning. He’d given Frank coffee the day before, but that was the extent of his effort up to that point. Frank preferred the distance, anyway. He was still having trouble believing that his talk with Gerard had even __happened__  – that Gerard had admitted to being suicidal and addicted to drugs and that Frank had cried and that Gerard had held him while it happened. He felt like two people occupying the same space, hopeless and hopeful at the same time about something that felt completely out of control. He needed time to think, away from Gerard’s immediate vicinity for a significant portion of time.

 

That wasn’t going to happen, obviously. He would just need to deal with it.

 

Gerard was on the stage when the group arrived, looking like an actual adult with his black teacher pants and turquoise sweater with the sleeves rolled up to the mid-forearm. If not for the way his smile was so sheepish, like he wasn’t sure what he was doing at any time ever, and the way his body stood as though even the simple act of being upright was a question, he might have actually seemed like a real, functional person.

 

“Mr. Way,” Mrs. Carlisle said by way of greeting, smiling at him in a way that was both relieved and apologetic. “I’m glad you could make it.”

 

“I promised I’d be here,” Gerard replied. He looked at Frank for a split second before looking back to Mrs. Carlisle and saying, “I try to keep my promises.”

 

The meaning of that was lost on Mrs. Carlisle, so she simply smiled and said, “That’s nice,” while Frank stood off to the side, pretending he hadn’t noticed the interaction and trying his best to not be affected.

 

~

 

The version of Gerard that sat stiffly in the pew of red theater seats beside Mrs. Carlisle, serious as they compared notes on how to build a small town within the confines of a stage, was very different from the Gerard that Frank was familiar with. His smiles were stiff, his laughter coming out in short, awkward bursts. It was somewhat off-putting, particularly since Frank had only ever been used to the kind of smiles that made the corners of Gerard’s eyes crinkle a little, his upturned nose scrunch up, weirdly small teeth bared to the world as he laughed his odd little laugh. This probably had to do with the difference in setting and the fact that it was nearly impossible for __anyone__  to be comfortable in a room full of theater-nerd high-schoolers.

 

Frank hated that Gerard was there, hated that he even noticed that Gerard was there. He actively fought against the urge to watch him and constantly be aware of his location, but the effort was mostly in vain, because Frank still noticed things - how Gerard’s tongue still had a habit of peaking out between his lips when he was concentrating, how his natural hair color was growing in, dark brown slowly overtaking the red, the way he tended to talk with one side of his mouth. He got lost in the rhythmic tapping of Gerard’s pen against his notebook as he struggled to figure out how to make his ideas work. It reminded him of Friday nights spent reading, Gerard tapping softly on his sketchbook, and the feeling that things were exactly as they should be.

 

Frank couldn’t focus. He forgot his lines, he forgot where to stand. He was so intent on trying not to notice Gerard that he couldn’t concentrate. He felt like a fool, felt like he could easily deck Gerard across the face - and they were supposed to start choreography on Monday, just to add to the whole fucking mess.

 

He sat by Brendon back stage between scenes, neither of them in the mood to speak. Brendon was busy watching Ryan act conflicted about his sexuality on stage, almost imperceptibly flinching and moving his head down if he thought that he might be caught watching, and Frank was glaring holes into the floor just to have something to do with his eyes that didn’t involve Gerard. There was nothing said between them, but the miserable silence was almost reassuring.

 

At least they weren’t miserable alone.

 

~

 

Friday arrived eventually, despite the rising concern that it simply wouldn’t show at all. It had evidently been hesitant to make an appearance, dragging its feet while the rest of the weekdays elongated themselves to compensate for Friday’s unwillingness to approach. Still, against all odds and beliefs otherwise, Friday did, in fact, arrive, much to Frank’s great relief. Finally, he would get a chance to unwind, maybe catch up on the sleep that he’d been missing, maybe smoke an entire pack of cigarettes, maybe rewatch the original __Jurassic Park__  movies. Whatever he decided to do, it would be relaxing.

 

At least, that’s what Frank believed until lunchtime when he received a text from Gerard. ****Want a ride home?****  it said. It was followed by another message, reading, ****I can supply coffee and/or food.****

****

Frank was immediately suspicious, concern crawling from the depths of his stomach and slithering its way into his lungs. Was that supposed to be some kind of bribe? Did Gerard want to have another talk? Frank didn’t want to talk. They’d already had enough tears for one week, thank you very fucking much. The last thing he needed was another heart to heart.

 

His phone buzzed again.

 

 ** **I promise, no ulterior motives**** , Gerard said. ****I just want to see you.****

****

Frank felt guilty immediately. Why did Gerard want to see him? He was bitchy and suspicious and had just been about to tell Gerard to fuck off in an effort to prevent another serious conversation like the one they had on Monday - which Gerard had had with Frank even though the subject matter was obviously hard enough for him to talk about without Frank’s hostility. Not to mention, Frank had still managed to make the whole damn thing about himself at the end, crying like a little bitch and needing Gerard to comfort him. Seriously, why would Gerard want to see Frank? He was a piece of shit, and he wasn’t even sure he didn’t hate Gerard most of the time.

 

“Who’re you talking to?” Bob asked, ripping Frank from his thoughts by leaning over the table, nosily trying to look at Frank’s text messages. “Whatever they just said, it looks like it’s giving you an existential crisis.”

 

Now, Frank usually considered himself very good at lying and diverting attention from himself, but he was having a bit of a rough week as it was, with the whole Gerard situation being what it was and how little he was sleeping. It was because of this that his immediate response to Bob’s prying was to make a god-awful, nervous whine, clutch his phone to his chest, and squeak, “None of your god damn business, bitch.” His voice sounded shaky in his own ears and he immediately regretted being born as the suspicion washed over Bob’s face.

 

“Dude, what the hell? You don’t need to be hostile about it. I was just curious,” he said, hands up in something like surrender, his face scrunched in confusion and distrust. “If you don’t want to talk about it, it’s whatever, but you don’t need to be rude about it.”

 

“It’s a private conversation,” Frank offered weakly. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

 

“Damn, dude. That’s all you had to say.”

 

Bob went back to eating his food, stabbing into it a little rougher in his agitation. Frank let his hair fall into his face as though it would hide him from the uncomfortable silence that had fallen over the table. It was getting long. He needed a haircut soon.

 

After a few moments’ hesitation, Frank finally thought, _Fuck it_ , and texted Gerard back.

 

 ** **Let me think about it**** , he said, fully knowing that he was going to go. ****I’ll let you know after studio.****

****

 

 

Gerard stopped his Camry in front of a cafe that Frank had never been to before, which wasn’t saying much, considering how rarely he left his house if he could help it. It was a simple red brick building, white trim around the windows and the door, and simple font on the sign that indicated the name of the establishment.

 

“I stop here sometimes on my way to school,” Gerard said, nervously tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. “I got your coffee here on Tuesday.”

 

That was odd. The coffee shop was in the complete opposite direction of Frank’s house when leaving the school. It was  probably thirty minutes away from where he lived - which meant that all those times Gerard had dropped Frank off had also been probably thirty or more minutes out of the way of his apartment.

 

“It’s not much, but it’s nice,” Gerard said, mistaking Frank’s contemplative silence for apprehension. “The coffee’s really good.”

 

He was pretty sure that the coffee he’d been given on Tuesday was good, but he was too tired at the time for it to have made a real impression. He figured it better be really fucking good for all the awkwardness of the situation.

 

After a few more arrant moments of silence, Frank finally unbuckled, opened his car door, and said, “Well, what are we waiting for? You promised me coffee.”

 

 

 

The inside of the coffee shop was an odd place, cohesive in a way that wouldn’t have worked if even one small detail about the place was altered. Frank loved it immediately.

 

Three of the walls were a hazy grayish-blue, like the sky during an early morning thunderstorm. The farthest wall was a warm red, the color of settling under a blanket with a mug of hot tea. The floors, the bar in the back left corner, and the raised platform in the back right corner were made of a rich, dark wood, and all of the tables were painted a smooth black. No two chairs in the entire establishment were the alike, which should have been chaotic and tacky, but was actually somehow quite the opposite. The walls were covered in posters, some of the bands featured on them incredibly obscure - like “Talk to Me on Tuesday” and “The Sugar Babies” - and others more well known - like The Smiths and Radiohead. In the back right corner, a karaoke machine was set up on the platform.

 

“Holy fuck,” Frank said, not sure how else to phrase the feeling he got just by walking in the door. It felt almost like making eye contact with Gerard. A forceful calm washed over him immediately, and there was nothing he could do but drink it in.

 

Frank poked Gerard’s shoulder lightly to make sure he had his attention, and very sternly said, “I am __not__  doing karaoke.”

 

Gerard smiled. “Noted.” Then, gesturing to the bar serving the coffee, “Shall we?”

 

 

 

Conversation was laborious to Frank on the best of days, but the best of days were long gone. Instead, he was at the end of perhaps the longest, most fucking _off_ week of his entire life, sat across from his first love/childhood friend/greatest antagonist in the most chaotic and somehow surreal coffee shop he’d ever stepped foot in. Talking to that particular person on that particular Friday in that particular coffee shop felt eerily similar to that Greek myth where the guy was cursed to push a rock up a hill for all eternity.

 

In other words, he didn’t know what to say.

 

Gerard was very obviously nervous. He took a drink of coffee from a lightly chipped, plum purple mug, then sat it down and began tapping on the porcelain. Then, he picked it up again and looked into the contents as though maybe his painfully sugary coffee had the answers, before finally attempting the dreaded small talk. “The play seems to be coming along well,” he said conversationally, with a remarkable lack of confidence. “When do you guys start working on the dancing stuff?”

 

“Next week.” Frank swirled the coffee around in his own candy blue mug. Jesus fucking __Christ__ , did he not want to talk. “She - Mrs. Carlisle - made a schedule for which days we’re supposed to come in and work on choreography, and then we’re supposed to try and put it together on Fridays.”

 

“So do you go in every day or just the days you have to work on your choreography?”

 

“We just come in whatever day we’re supposed to work on our parts. I think she wanted me to do some of the ensemble dancing too, though, because we’re low on dancers, so I’ll probably still be there every day.”

 

“Is she holding practice over break?”

 

“Uh, yeah. We’re running a little behind schedule, so we have to.”

 

“I didn’t realize you guys were behind.”

 

“That’s good, I guess.” Frank took a sip of his steaming coffee while he tried to think of something else to say to keep the conversation going. It burnt his tongue. “So, uh, she asked you to do sets?”

 

Gerard smiled, sheepishness at the corners of his mouth and humor in the raising of his brow. “Yeah, she did. I promise, I wasn’t trying to secretly infiltrate the drama club just to make you uncomfortable.”

 

“That sounds exactly like what someone would say if they’d secretly infiltrated the drama club just to make me uncomfortable and wanted me to think otherwise."

 

The elder Way brother gave a genuine laugh at that. It almost seemed to catch him by surprise, like he hadn’t expected to find anything funny on this particular outing. It was a fair expectation.

 

“Fair enough,” he said, still breathing out the remnants of laughter. “I can promise you my intentions were pure, at least. Aysha - uh, Mrs. Carlisle - needed some help and I get a stipend attached to my laughable teacher’s salary for my involvement.”

 

“That’s like a bonus, right?”

 

“Essentially.”

 

They both occupied themselves with drinking their coffee in the simple, uncomfortable silence that followed.

 

There was a question working its way through Frank’s brain as he slowly drained his mug. _Why _?__  Why did Gerard want to spend time with him? The whole situation was awkward as fuck and typically somewhat painful. Why even bother? Why drive out of his way to drop Frank off at his house when he was for sure going to be bitchy and hard to talk to? Why buy him coffee? _Fucking why _?__

__

“I don’t really get this,” Frank’s mouth said, unbidden.

 

Gerard seemed unbothered by this and calmly returned his attention from the posters  to the neighbor boy across from him. “What is it that you don’t get?”

 

 _Well, fuck _,__  Frank thought, angry at his own mouth for its lack of filter. _I guess we’re just fucking going for it, then _.__  “This,” he said aloud, staring into his mug. “Us. You. The situation.”

 

Gerard sat his own cup down gently. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

 

“You’re just…you’re just being really nice.” Frank wasn’t sure how else to put it. “Like, too nice.”

 

“I’m too nice?” Gerard smiled slightly. “My apologies. I’ll try to be worse.”

 

Frank huffed and blew the hair out of his face. __Damn,__  it was getting long. “You said this place was on the way to school for you, yes?”

 

The elder Way brother nodded in the affirmative.

 

“We have to be at least a half hour from my house. That tells me that you go __at least__  thirty minutes out of your way every time you drop me off from school. Gas is expensive, Gerard, and that’s a lot of money to spend on someone who’s bitchy at best.”

 

“I’m not worried about it,” Gerard said, waving his hand dismissively.

 

“See, that’s most of what I don’t get.” Frank scrubbed a hand over his tired eyes and took another swig of his coffee just for something to do besides look at Gerard and his stupidly calm face. “You should be worried about it. You buy me coffee and drive me around and I’m __bitchy__.”

 

“You could always try being nice to me, too.” He propped his elbow on the table and rested his chin into his open palm. “If you’re so worried about inconveniencing me, you could buy my coffee next time.”

 

“That’s not the point,” Frank said, huffing again.

 

“You’re over-thinking things. I’m just trying to be happy.”

 

“How does spending money on me make you happy? I’m __bitchy__.”

 

“You’re challenging,” Gerard corrected, laughing quietly under his breath. After a moment, he became more serious. “I think the last time I was truly content in the world was when I was, like, fifteen. Do you remember those Friday nights? You’d sit on the foot of the bed and read while I doodled and Mikey played his Nintendo on the floor, and the best part of the whole thing was that it felt like everything was exactly the way it was supposed to be.”

 

“What does that have to do with this?”

 

“Everything, Frankie.”

 

Frank wasn’t sure he was following anymore.

 

“Look, I know we can’t just go back to the way things were. It was stupid of me to think as much. But, it doesn’t have to be just like it was, you know? Yeah, you do present unique challenges, but it’s not like that’s without reason…” He trailed off just long enough for a sweet smile to grace his lips. “…And every time you smile, even if it’s just a little bit, it almost feels like I’m doing something right for a change - like I’m coming home again.”

 

A swift heat spread up into Frank’s cheeks and over his neck, and he scratched at the back of his head, the need to fidget too great to resist. That was an annoyingly sweet thing to say.

 

“I’m not asking you to just up and forgive me, but I do ask that you to let me try and make things up to you. For me, that includes driving you home sometimes and occasionally bringing you coffee.” Gerard turned the ring on his thumb absently. “I’m working my way up to grander gestures, but this is all I’ve got for now.”

 

“If your grand gestures draw attention to me in public, so help me God, I will end you,” Frank said, but his voice lacked the heat required to create the illusion of a threat. “I hate when people look at me.”

 

“So, naturally, you joined the drama club and decided to be in a musical.”

 

In the name of being not-bitchy, Frank neglected to bring up the real reason he was in the drama club, instead opting for a half-hearted, but still slightly bitchy, “Fuck off.”

 

Gerard just smiled.

 

~

 

At 2:48 am on Saturday night - rather, Sunday morning - Frank was startled awake by a loud buzzing directly in front of his face. Upon closer inspection, the source of the offensive noise was his cell phone, which his own dumb, sleepy ass had left on the pillow. Now, normally, he’d have simply shut the stupid thing off and gone back to sleep. However, it was Mikey calling, and he was essentially contractually obliged by a lifetime of friendship to answer, no matter how grumpy he was about that fact.

 

Begrudgingly, he answered the phone.

 

“You dying?” he asked by way of greeting, his voice cracked and strained by hours of disuse.

 

It took Mikey a moment to respond, but when he did, it was in a perfect deadpan. “Not that I know of,” he said. “You?”

 

“What d’you want? It’s the asscrack of night.”

 

“I need a favor.” Perhaps Mikey could sense that Frank was about half a second away from telling him to fuck off and call back in the morning, because he then added, “And you can’t say no. You still owe me for not telling anyone about last April.”

 

Frank made a grumbling noise at the back of his throat at the mention of The Incident. He was drunk. He wished Mikey would just let the fucking thing go.

 

“Fine,” Frank said, his voice a grouchy mumble. “What do you want?”

 

“I need you to go to the Thanksgiving thing at my parents’ house on Thursday and cover for me when I pretend to get sick.”

 

“I’m supposed to go to see my dad for Thanksgiving,” Frank reminded him. He’d been going to his dad’s for Thanksgiving ever since he’d officially decided to live with his mom full time when he was 15. It was one of the only times he could count on seeing his dad, even if he was mostly unaffected by Frank Sr.’s existence most of the time. “I don’t know if I can get out of it.”

 

There was just the faintest hint of desperation in Mikey’s voice - a significant amount of desperation for Mikey - when he asked, “Could you please try?”

 

That was fucking weird. Frank couldn’t remember the last time Mikey used the word “please”, and was suddenly overwhelmingly curious. “Why are you trying to get out of Thanksgiving?”

 

“I have a date.”

 

That was even weirder. “With who?”

 

“That’s not important,” Mikey hedged. “Will you talk to your dad or not?”

 

“If you want me to reschedule one of the only times I know for sure that I’m going to see my father - who’s usually too busy for me - just so that I can attend a family gathering for a family that I don’t belong to and __lie to them__  so that you can go on a date and abandon me there, you will tell me who you’re going on a date with.”

 

Frank had a very good point, and Mikey must have thought so as well, because he sighed, long and suffering. “Pete, okay? I’m going out with Pete.” He said it as though Frank was supposed to know who that was.

 

“Pete who?”

 

“Wentz. From the tattoo place.”

 

Frank blinked. “The guy who did my tattoo?” Sure, Frank remembered Mikey giving out his number, but he didn’t think anything would actually come of it. Mikey was kinda flaky, romance wise, so the most anyone could really expect of him was maybe some flirting and a few hook ups. Mikey didn’t __date__ , and he especially didn’t date guys who looked like they wrote bad poetry in between sticking people with needles.

 

Actually, apparently, he did. “Yeah,” he said. “Now will you please fucking agree to help me?”

 

It was too fucking late - early, whatever - for Frank to deal with that level of out of character bullshit from Mikey. “Yeah, sure,” he agreed, ready to go back to sleep and forget the whole thing. “I’ll call my dad in the morning.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

Frank acknowledged his thanks with a grunt and hung up, dropping his phone onto his night stand as he did so. It was a weird fucking night.

 

Er, morning.

 

~

 

On Monday morning, Ryan looked like crap as he sat down next to Frank on the bus. His hair was curly and tangled, standing up in the back of his head, and he was sporting pajama pants and an old hoodie. The poor kid looked like he was struggling to stay awake as he made his way down the aisle and took the seat next to Frank on the bus.

 

Somehow, he still had the energy to talk to Frank while he was trying to listen to music.

 

“What are you doing over Thanksgiving break, Frank?” he asked casually, just before Frank could place his earbud.

 

As it was a Monday morning, Frank was even less inclined to be polite to people interrupting his music than usual, but one look at the dark bruises under Ryan’s eyes had him hesitating to be bitchy.

 

“I’m, uh…” he began, forcing himself to swallow his rudeness. “I’m going to a thing at a family friend’s house.” Then, for some reason, his mouth asked, “What about you?”

 

Ryan’s face fell a little, and he looked across the aisle to where Brendon was sitting, angled away from the rest of the world as he glared out the window, his headphones turned up to tune out the noise on the bus. “I usually do something with Brendon…” he said, and Frank could almost hear the unspoken, “but I don’t know if that’s going to happen this year,” attached to the end.

 

Frank felt bad for Ryan. He knew exactly what it was like to have someone you love distance themselves. In fact, he thought that it might have actually been worse for Ryan, because Ryan didn’t have a Mikey to fall back on. Ryan had no one but Brendon, and Brendon was kind of being a dick.

 

Maybe that’s why Frank’s mouth decided to say, “You can come to my Thanksgiving thing, if you want.”

 

Ryan looked about as surprised hearing the offer as Frank felt having extended it.

 

“What?” he asked, like he wasn’t sure he’d heard Frank right. It was a fair thing to be confused about.

 

That was Frank’s chance. He could say something else. He could recant. He could do anything that would mean he didn’t have to pile on more social obligation to an already difficult social obligation.

 

“I said you could come with me to my thing on Thanksgiving, if you want,” he said, because he was evidently a fucking pushover. “If you don’t have your own family thing to fall back on, or whatever, you can come over and go to my thing with me.”

 

Ryan looked like he was considering it, and then looked back to Brendon and sighed. “I guess it just depends on what happens with Brendon. We have a kind of tradition.”

 

Frank shrugged, half hoping that Brendon and Ryan would make up just so that Frank didn’t have to entertain Ryan on his own and half guilty for being such an asocial prick. “Fair enough,” he said. “Just keep me posted and let me know for sure before Thursday.”

 

Ryan tried to smile at him, but his heart and his face weren’t really into it. “Thanks, Frank,” he said. “I’ll let you know.”

 

 

 

Gerard was a lot of things. He was artistic and passionate, flamboyant and empathetic, generous and determined, so on and so on. On that particular Monday in November, the only way Frank could think of to describe Gerard was that he was _incandescent_.

 

When Frank entered the classroom just before the bell, the first thing he noticed was that Gerard was practically glowing with joy. His smile was radiant, his cheeks rosy, his eyes shining as he partook in what looked to be some sort of sword fight with a very tall, sharp cheek-boned student, possibly named Andrew or Andy or something, but with rulers instead of swords. In fact, Gerard was __losing__ , but that didn’t seem to matter to him. He just laughed every time Andy or Andrew or whatever swatted at him.

 

Bob offered to explain what had happened leading up to that, but Frank said he didn’t want to know. It felt almost like the near-magic and innocence of the ruler duel would be tainted if he thought it had been brought on by anything other than pure, unadulterated revelry.

 

It almost ached to watch Gerard smile like that because of someone else, but Frank knew that was ridiculous. He could just barely convince himself that he didn’t hate Gerard for the way he’d made Frank feel in his absence. Making Gerard smile like that was not his top priority, at the moment. Plus, Frank wasn’t sure he could even make __himself__  smile like that, let alone another person. There was no point in being jealous.

 

He was still jealous.

 

After three solid minutes of Gerard getting his ass handed to him in the ruler duel, he made Andrew or Andy or whatever sit down so that he could start class.

 

“Hello, everyone,” he said, plopping himself down on the empty table in the front and pulling his legs into a criss-cross position. He was breathing kinda hard, but he was almost luminous with it, and Frank found himself actively fighting off thoughts veering towards the word “pretty”.

 

“Hello, Mr. Way,” Britney responded dutifully. That bitch.

 

Gerard smiled at her obligingly. “Hello, Britney.”

 

The dumb bitch preened. Frank fucking loathed her.

 

“If you haven’t already turned in your self portraits, whether that’s because you forgot or because you couldn’t reach the turn in box for fear of interrupting Mr. Biersack and mine’s epic battle, go ahead and do so now.” Gerard blew a strand of his very much disheveled hair out of his face. “I’ve defeated him, so it’s safe to pass.”

 

“You wish, man,” Andrew or Andy or whatever said.

 

The class laughed a little at that, as several of them, Frank included, got up to turn in their projects.

 

“This next project will be the last project of the semester,” Gerard announced once everyone was seated again. “I’ve heard a few of you are transferring out of my class at semester, and of course that makes me sad, so our next project will be something happy to kind of make up for my students abandoning me.” He was smiling, but Frank could tell that it really did make him sad that there were people transferring out of his class. He was transparent like that. “Your assignment is to portray triumph. I want you to use your mediums to show someone or something overcoming the impossible. For example, you could depict me emerging victorious from a harrowing ruler duel against Andy-” the class laughed, “-or something equally as difficult. All of the same limitations apply, so no sex, no drugs, no gang signs. Please, do not give the administration a reason to fire me.”

 

Gerard paused in his speech long enough to pull his hair back into a tiny, loose pony tail, and Frank noticed that his roots weren’t showing anymore. The color was more vibrant, as well. He must have redyed it over the weekend.

 

“This is your final project,” Gerard reminded the class, tucking the strands already falling from his sad little pony tail. “Please don’t half-ass this. This doubles as your final, so it’s worth twenty five percent of your grade. Since it’s so important, you’ll have the full three and a half weeks until Christmas break to work on it in class, but you won’t have any time to work on it out of class unless you take it home after school to work on it. Does anyone have any questions?”

 

There were no questions.

 

“Excellent,” he said, sliding from the table and moving to sit at his actual desk. “This is a two-day week, so we’re just going to spend the rest of the hour today and the hour tomorrow watching YouTube videos. I hope you guys like __Simon’s Cat__ , ‘cause if not, you’re shit outta luck.”

 

~

 

On Wednesday at exactly 5:30 pm, Frank stood outside his father’s house, staring at the front door. Inside, he could hear the tell-tale sounds of his younger half-sisters engaging in their typical heathendom and his step mother yelling after them. Cynthia’s voice was sharp and shrill, but Frank liked her anyway. Sometimes he thought she might be too good for his dad.

 

Frank Sr. was an interesting man to say the least. He worked full time in the sales department of a company that Frank didn’t care enough about to remember the name of. Whatever the company, his job took up most of his time, and then his replacement children and second wife took up the rest of it. Even back when Frank had still lived with his dad part time, he’d felt like he barely existed in their lives.

 

Frank Sr., however, did not seem to be aware of this, so whenever Frank bothered to come over, he acted like nothing had changed between them at all. It was irritating, but it was a necessary evil. If Frank Sr. actually thought there was a problem, he’d never leave Frank alone, which would be somewhat counterproductive considering all Frank wanted from his father was just that: to be _left alone_.

 

The evening progressed almost exactly as Frank had assumed it would. His sisters were loud and wild, knocking over furniture as they raced around the living room, and then the kitchen, and then the dining room. Cynthia cooked something barely edible. Frank Sr. pulled him into an ungodly bear hug at the door, and then proceeded to talk without stopping until dinner. Frank wasn’t even sure what he was saying half the time. He just nodded, agreed, and tried to appear interested.

 

The only time during the duration of the evening that Frank was truly caught off guard was towards the end of the meal. The girls had abandoned their plates at the table and gone back to causing mayhem, so it was just Frank Sr., who only stopped talking long enough to eat, Cynthia, and Frank. Everything was going fine. Frank Sr. was talking about bonds or something between bites and Frank was pretending to care.

 

Then, during a rare lull in conversation, Cynthia spoke up. “So, Frank,” she said sweetly in her too-high voice. “Your mother tells me that one of your childhood friends has moved back to town. Gerard, right? You used to talk about him a lot. How is he?”

 

Now, in Frank’s defense, not only was he having a really off couple of weeks, but the last thing he expected from an evening at his father’s house was to be asked about his life besides the generic school, work, music questions. She simply caught him off guard.

 

In other words, Frank choked on his turkey.

 

“Oh my goodness, Frank! Are you okay?” Cynthia asked, patting his back helpfully as he gasped for air and forcefully swallowed the object blocking his airways.

 

“I’m fine,” he choked out. “Gerard’s fine. Everyone’s fine. How’s Grampa?”

 

Frank Sr. took the bait, never missing an opportunity to answer a question in about a thousand words and no less, and the subject was effectively changed, much to Frank’s immediate relief and acute embarrassment.

 

 

 

During the wee morning hours, Frank typically didn’t answer the phone for anyone other than Mikey. However, on Wednesday night - Thursday morning - Frank’s phone alerted him to an incoming call from Ryan. Since he was already awake scrolling Tumblr, worrying about lying to Mikey’s family, and even more so, worrying about spending time with Gerard, he listened to the nagging voice at the back of his head that told him to answer it.

 

Ryan was crying on the other end of the line.

 

“Is it too late to go with you to your Thanksgiving thing?” he asked, his voice broken and hoarse.

 

Frank thought for a second, listening to Ryan cry, and then said, “Nah, it’s not too late.”

 

“Okay, good,” Ryan said. Then, after a few shaky beats of silence, “Can you come get me tomorrow? I don’t have my license yet.”

 

Frank sat up, rubbed the tired from his eyes, and pushed his laptop to the side of the bed. The time on his phone read 4:03 am. Ryan was crying on the phone to Frank when he should have been crying to Brendon.

 

“What happened?” Frank asked, more curious than he was tired, though he found that he was __very__  tired.

 

Ryan sniffled a few times before mumbling weakly, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

 

Tomorrow, Frank had to get up and face a house full of people he barely knew and definitely hadn’t interacted with in awhile. He would need all the strength and energy he could muster to overcome it. Still, he couldn’t make himself hang up on Ryan. Not right then. Not when he knew that Ryan had no one.

 

Frank pulled the blankets from his body, mentally protesting at the sudden temperature shift, and threw his legs over the side of the bed. “I’m coming to get you,” he said, scanning the floor with bleary eyes for some pants. “Be outside in, like, five minutes.”

 

“You don’t have to,” Ryan said, but even his protest was half-hearted at best. “It’s really late.”

 

“I’m aware of the time.” He pulled on the first pair of pants his hands brushed against, which happened to be a particularly smelly pair of jeans. Whatever. “Will you be outside or not? Or do I need to come to the door?”

 

During the ensuing silence, Frank pulled his pants up clumsily, nearly falling over twice, located his shoes, and crept down the stairs so as not to wake his mom. It was only after he located his mom’s car keys on the kitchen counter that he heard Ryan’s voice over the receiver say, “I’ll be outside.”

 

“Excellent,” Frank said. Then, he hung up and sighed.

 

He really needed to learn not to be such a fucking pushover.

 

 

 

Ryan was serious about not wanting to talk about whatever had happened. Apparently, that also meant he wasn’t going to talk much at all.

 

He rolled up in front of Ryan’s house at 4:09 am, and Ryan was there like he said he’d be, eyes red and puffy and a small backpack slung carelessly over his shoulder. He got into Frank’s mom’s car without a word and, at 4:15 am, entered Frank’s house silently.

 

Frank was always the first to admit that he was bitchy at best and flat out fucking rude at worst. He wasn’t exactly nurturing, and no one had ever really asked him to be. He sure as hell didn’t know what to say to Ryan to make the situation better and he knew that he was more likely to cause harm than good if he tried. All he did know was how to do was be around and wait until Ryan wanted to talk. Until then, he would be quiet. After all, silence had healing properties, too.

 

He would just have to improvise.

 

First, he sat Ryan down on the couch in the living room and wrapped him in the fluffiest blanket he could find. Then, he grabbed the first cheesy horror movie he saw on his bedroom floor and turned it on for Ryan while he went to the kitchen to find something sweet and unhealthy. His mom was on a diet, so there wasn’t much, but Frank did manage to scrounge up a hidden container of rocky road ice cream from the back of the freezer - probably hidden there by Linda for cheat days - and presented it to Ryan with a spoon. After all of that was done, he sat down next to him on the couch and waited, watching carefully to see if any of it was helping at all.

 

Ryan didn’t say anything as the hours ticked by. He finished his ice cream by the end of the first movie and stared blankly at the screen for the duration of the second. It was almost 7:30 in the morning when Frank finally decided that they were going to bed, because the poor kid wasn’t up for deciding much of anything for himself and Frank needed to get as much sleep as possible before he had to be at the Way residence later that day. It was only as they were getting settled in to opposite sides of Frank’s queen sized bed, not touching, but close enough that Frank could still be there if he was needed, that Ryan finally spoke.

 

“You’re really nice to me,” he said, and he sounded dazed. Frank glanced over at him, and his eyes were glazed over. “Where did you learn to take care of people when they’re sad?”

 

“TV, mostly. And my best friend, Mikey,” Frank said, automatically divulging the information because he was tired. “He did the same kind of stuff for me whenever I was sad.”

 

Ryan pondered this for a moment before declaring, “He sounds like a good friend.”

 

Frank agreed, but said nothing. His mouth was heavy and he was tired of talking.

 

After several moments of silence, Frank was mostly asleep and assumed that Ryan was as well. This was disproved when he asked, “Are we friends?

 

That was such a stupid question that Frank didn’t really think it dignified an answer, but in the name of humoring Ryan because he was sad, he mumbled something like, “Fucking duh.”

 

Ryan said nothing else, and when Frank looked over, the poor kid was asleep. Frank himself followed suit quickly after.

 

 

 

Linda must have been very surprised to walk into Frank’s bedroom on Thursday morning and find another boy in there, snuggled up to her son’s side in his sleep. If it weren’t for the fact that Frank had spent the night tossing and turning, restless with worry for Ryan and the events yet to transpire sooner and sooner as the hours ticked by, he might not have woken up when she opened his bedroom door and walked in.

 

The look on Linda’s face was something akin to surprise and disappointment. Frank could only assume she thought he’d snuck Ryan in to fuck or something. She wasn’t judgy, but she didn’t tolerate sneaking around in her house.

 

“This isn’t what it looks like,” Frank whispered, sitting up carefully so as not to jostle Ryan, and getting out of bed. He tried to look calm, like he hadn’t done anything wrong, as he approached her. If he looked guilty, it’d be harder to make his mother believe that he was not, in fact, whoring around - at least, not anymore. “He called me last night and was really upset. I didn’t know what else to do.”

 

Linda looked at Ryan, looked at Frank, then led her son into the hallway and shut the door. “What happened?” she asked carefully. Her face was coached into a blank expression. Frank could tell that she was trying not to pass judgement.

 

The truth felt like his best option.

 

“He usually goes to Thanksgiving at Brendon’s, but he and Brendon are having issues or something. I dunno,” Frank explained, keeping his voice steady and his eyes locked on hers to make himself more believable. “So, I offered to let him come with us because I know Donna won’t care and he’s been all upset and whatever. He said he didn’t know and that he’d get back to me about it, and then he called me last night, crying and shit and he sounded really upset. I didn’t know what else to do, so I went and picked him up and brought him back here. We watched a couple movies, ate your ice cream, and then we went to sleep.”

 

Linda appraised her son for several moments, thinking, and then smiled slightly and said, “You ate my ice cream?” Thank _fuck_ , she wasn't mad.

 

“It was absolutely necessary to the healing process,” Frank insisted, a smile of his own forming.

 

“Then I guess I can forgive you just this once, since it was absolutely necessary,” she said. Then, she pulled him into her arms for a hug and a kiss on the forehead and added, “and because you’re such a sweet kid.”

 

Frank didn’t really think he was all that sweet, but he wasn’t going to argue the point when he’d just avoided punishment for sneaking out and bringing someone home without his mother’s knowledge. He may have been legally an adult, but he still had to abide by his mother’s rules while living in her house, and he had broken a good few of them.

 

“The party starts around 3, but I want to be over at the Way’s by 2:15 so that I can visit with Donna,” Linda said, pulling back from the hug, still smiling. “You and Ryan need to be ready to go in two hours. Think you can manage that?”

 

“Sure,” Frank said. “Just let me wake up Ryan and then we’ll, like, shower and get ready and stuff.”

 

“Separate showers, of course,” his mother said. Even though she was smiling, Frank could tell that this was a real concern for her.

 

Frank rolled his eyes. “We’re not together, Mom. Just friends.”

 

“Good,” she said. “Then separate showers won’t be a problem.”

 

 

 

When Linda said that she wanted to be at the Way residence by 2:15, she meant it.

 

“Frank Anthony Iero Junior, get your ass down here right now!” she yelled up the stairs. “It’s 2:13. Do __not__  make me late, young man!”

 

Ryan pulled his pants up sluggishly, having just reawakened from his after-shower nap and gave Frank a tired look that was probably meant to be apologetic.

 

“We’re coming, Mom!” Frank yelled back. He was gesturing to Ryan to hurry the fuck up, but the damn kid couldn’t seem to get his belt buckled. “We live across the street! I’m sure it’ll be fine!”

 

He could hear his mom slamming her Tupperware around downstairs. “Don’t you dare push me right now, Frank! I said I wanted to be there at 2:15, and I fully intend to be there at 2:15!”

 

“She could just leave without us,” Ryan offered as he pulled on his shoes, laces tucked beneath his feet to avoid tying them.

 

Frank just shook his head. “She won’t go for that right now. She’s too stressed. Should have thought of that sooner.”

 

Ryan offered a real, actual, fully facially coordinated look of apology as they rushed down the stairs and out the door. It was a lot for a kid who mostly just looked like he was either pissed or in pain all the time. Frank was kind of proud.

 

 

 

The first thing Donna did when she saw Frank was pinch his cheeks. “Frank Anthony Iero Junior!” she exclaimed, her fingers like vices on his cheek flesh. “I haven’t seen you in months!”

 

“Yeah, son,” said Donald, arm around his wife. “What’s the deal? We live across the street! Why haven’t you stopped by to say hi?”

 

They were smiling, but Donna looked a little hurt. She was like Gerard in the way that she wasn’t exceptionally good at hiding her emotions.

 

Frank very carefully and politely pried her hands off so that he could speak. “I’m sorry, guys,” Frank said, and he made his voice sound as disappointed as he could manage for someone who did not regret avoiding social situations in the slightest. “I’ve been really busy with play practice lately. In fact, we just started choreography. I’d have been at practice today, but Mrs. Carlisle decided at the last minute to let us have the day off.”

 

“Oh my goodness, that’s right!” Donna squealed. She clasped her hands together in front of her abruptly and with excitement. “Gerard was just telling us that you were in a musical of some sort! What’s that called again?”

 

“ _ _The Death of a Bachelor__ ,” Frank said. Then, because he didn’t want to carry the weight of their attention by himself, and also because he was a gigantic asshole, he clasped Ryan’s shoulder and said, “Ryan here is one of the leads.”

 

“That’s wonderful!” Donna said, and she shook one of Ryan’s hands. He looked like a deer in oncoming traffic. “It’s so nice to meet you, Ryan. I’m Donna and this is my husband, Donald.”

 

“Nice to meet you,” Donald said. He also shook Ryan’s hand.

 

“Uh, you too,” the poor kid said.

 

Donna pinched Frank’s cheeks again. “I guess we can forgive you for not coming to see us since you’ve been so busy with the play and making new friends.” She winked at Ryan. “You’ll have to let us know when the play is so that we can come and see your performance!”

 

“Of course,” Frank agreed. “I’ll save you seats in the front.”

 

“You’re such a sweet boy.” Donna gave one last pat to Frank’s cheek and then dismissed them by saying, “Mikey and Gerard are in the kitchen.”

 

 

 

For all the worrying that Frank had done leading up to the Way Thanksgiving, most of it being about Gerard, one might have thought that Frank would have remembered to tell Ryan that, _Oh, hey, remember the art teacher that’s been helping with the sets during play practice? Mr. Way? Well, he’s going to be there and also I’ve known him my entire life. Please be prepared for my painful awkwardness._

__

He didn’t remember.

 

Mikey and Gerard were sitting on opposite sides of the kitchen table when Frank entered the kitchen. They were playing a card game that looked like Uno, but neither of them were talking. They were just staring at each other intensely and very carefully laying down cards.

 

Gerard noticed Frank first. “Hiya, Frankie,” he said, his face lighting up immediately. It was kind of annoyingly sweet.

 

Frank smiled a little and waved hello back in a way that was almost painfully ungraceful. “Hi, guys.” Ryan appeared beside him just a second later, thankfully giving him an excuse to look away - or, rather, not look at Gerard. “This is my friend, Ryan.”

 

It was then, watching Ryan’s almost-at-ease expression turn to one of acute discomfort in an instant, that Frank remembered that he forgot to tell Ryan that Gerard would be there.

 

“You didn’t tell me you were bringing a friend,” Mikey drawled, his voice taking on as much of a tone of scandal as it ever would, even though his face was just as blank as it usually was. He stood from the table and made his way over to Ryan, extending a hand to shake. “I didn’t even know Frankie _had_ other friends. Ryan, right? I’m Mikey.”

 

Frank rolled his eyes. Dramatic bitch.

 

Ryan took his hand shyly. “Nice to meet you,” he mumbled.

 

“We’ll see.” Mikey smiled slightly with false wickedness. Then, he gestured to the remaining occupant of the kitchen table. “This is my older brother, Gerard, by the way.”

 

Frank was already unreasonably nervous to be in the same room as Gerard again, even though they saw each other all the time. However, something about the situation was more embarrassing than usual - probably because everything is more embarrassing when extended family is involved. He had a feeling that Ryan was about two seconds away from falling into an anxiety-induced, rambling spiel about how they already know each other because of the drama club, and he wanted to avoid extra awkwardness as much as possible.

 

So, Frank did the only reasonable thing and physically tackled Mikey to the ground.

 

As they landed on the floor in a huff, Frank thrown half over Mikey’s torso, Mikey didn’t even seem surprised. “What the fuck, Frank,” he deadpanned, but it wasn’t a question as much as it was a general statement about the situation.

 

Frank tried to shrug it off as best he could while laying on top of his best friend. “I missed you,” he offered meekly as an explanation. Then, in the name of not sounding like a sentimental little bitch, he added, “You stupid slut.”

 

“I can tell.”

 

He half-shimmied, half-crawled off of Mikey and into a kneeling position on the floor, from which Ryan offered him a hand up. Mikey just stayed on the floor, spread out like the world’s least emotive starfish.

 

“So, what brings you to the Way family Thanksgiving, with this asshole?” he asked, his eyes offering a barely-there glare up at Frank heatlessly. He was being exceptionally expressive on that particular Thursday.

 

“I invited him here to help protect my innocence,” Frank intercepted. Ryan didn't need to have to try and explain Brendon. “You two are bad influences, and I must be shielded from your heathen-ism.”

 

“I think the fuck not,” Mikey said, sitting up and kicking at Frank’s shins. “If anyone here is immoral, it’s __you__.”

 

“I’m sorry you have to hear these _lies,_ Ryan,” Frank said, throwing an arm over Ryan’s hunched shoulders, offering what he hoped was an apologetic smile worthy of the sophomore not hating him after the night was over. “Mikey has an overdeveloped flair for the dramatic.”

 

“I think you’re confusing me with little-miss-tight-pants-and-red-hair,” Mikey shot back, gesturing again to the kitchen table’s very flustered occupant. “I’m the Way brother with the underdeveloped tolerance for absolute and complete bullshit. Mikey, remember? Your best friend?”

 

Gerard crooked in on himself in his chair. “Please don’t drag me into this.”

 

“Ya know, thinking back, I’m pretty sure Gerard was always the worst of the three of us,” Mikey said, completely ignoring his brother. “Remember when we were, like, eleven and thirteen and he convinced us to play hide and seek and we hid in the basement?”

 

Frank glared at Gerard in the most playful manner he could muster with his nerves running wild. “Yeah. He never found us. He was too busy looking for us in his comic book.”

 

“What is this? Attack Gerard Day?” Gerard asked, defensive. “I just wanted to play Uno.”

 

Mikey and Gerard began bickering, talking over each other and throwing good-natured insults back and forth. It was kind of funny, but also kind of uncomfortable. Frank felt bad for Ryan, who hadn’t known what to expect.

 

“Welcome to the shit show,” Frank offered humbly, searching Ryan’s face for immanent signs of growing hatred. He found none, thankfully. Just a lot of discomfort. “This is my extended family.”

 

 

 

“Look, I’m not, like, mad or anything, but I still feel like you should have given me a heads up before I walked into a room and made the most awkward eye contact of my entire fucking life with Mr. Way.”

 

Frank and Ryan were seated at an old, round card table in the living room. This was the same card table that Frank, Gerard, and Mikey were always sat at during family gatherings growing up, so it was dubbed “The Kid’s Table”. It was only because Linda and Donna thought they were funny that Ryan and Frank were seated there at that moment, plates of steaming food before them barely making up for the indigence of the situation.

 

“I’m sorry, Ryan,” Frank said seriously, pulling nervously at the worn vinyl of the table’s top. “I completely forgot he was going to be here.” Now, that was obviously a lie. Frank just really did not want to go into exactly why he had been too preoccupied to remember to tell Ryan that Gerard would be there. “If you’re uncomfortable, we can leave.”

 

“No, that’s okay. It’s cool. I’m just kinda confused, I guess,” the sophomore said, pushing his peas around with his fork. “I take it you’ve known these guys for a while? You said they were like extended family.”

 

Frank shrugged a little. “You could say that. They moved in across the street when I was, like, four, and my mom’s been close with their parents ever since.” Frank very carefully omitted the fact that he spent almost every waking moment with the Way brothers while he was growing up and that he was painfully in love with the older one.

 

“I never would have guessed that with how little you and Mr. Way interact at play practice,” Ryan wheedled. He was not subtle in his search for information.

 

Frank humored him. “I guess not. He drives me home sometimes, though.”

 

“And it’s not weird to have him there? At school?”

 

“It was at first, but he teaches my eighth hour, so I just kinda got used to him being there.” This was also a lie. Ryan didn’t need to know about the hot fucking mess that had gone down when Gerard had first arrived.

 

“So, what do you do if you’re like, mad at him, or something? You can’t just avoid him if he teaches your eighth hour.”

 

 _You’d be surprised _,__ Frank thought bitterly. Then, he offered another lie: “I dunno. I haven’t been mad at him yet. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

 

Blessedly, at that moment, Mikey plopped down in the seat on the other side of Frank, across from Ryan. “I fucking hate the stupid cranberry sauce,” he muttered, effectively changing the subject and turning the discussion from wherever the hell it had been headed. “It’s a damned canned atrocity and no one eats it. Why do we have it __every fucking year__?”

 

Ryan nervously picked at the cranberry sauce on his plate. “I’ve never had it before.”

 

Mikey looked him very seriously in the eyes. “I’m sure your taste buds would thank you if you kept it that way.”

 

“Why are his taste buds thanking him?” Gerard asked as he approached, setting his tray in the space between where Mikey and Ryan were sitting.

 

“Ryan’s never had cranberry sauce,” Mikey explained.

 

“Oh. He’s not missing anything.”

 

“That’s what I said.”

 

Frank couldn’t help but laugh at the gravity with which the Way brothers discussed cranberry sauce. “Will you guys calm the fuck down and let him live his damn life? He’s just a boy.”

 

“Whenever I eat cranberry sauce, all I can think of is, like, a fruit funeral,” Gerard said very seriously as Frank began taking a drink of his water. “And, like, the guests start going up and eating the fruit corpse.”

 

Frank shot water out of his nose. “ _What the fuck_?”

 

“I just mean that it’s unnatural,” Gerard said, defensive.

 

“When you think of unnatural, your first thought is fruit cannibalism?” Mikey asked, laughter behind his words as well. “That’s pretty fucked up, Gee.”

 

Gerard raised a single brow in challenge. “You wanna talk about fucked up, Mikey? Who fooled around with -”

 

“Shut your _whore mouth_ , Gerard.”

 

Frank was laughing so hard that he thought he might piss himself between coughing fits triggered by the water shot out of his nose. Ryan was smiling, too.

 

It was kind of nice.

 

 

 

At some point in the evening, about twenty minutes before Mikey was scheduled to fake sickness with Frank’s backup, the younger Way brother noticed Frank’s fidgeting was steadily getting worse as the night wore on. He had held up alright for most of the duration of the party, and it had really helped to have Ryan there, too, because Frank liked being around him for some reason, even though they were very new friends and hardly knew anything about each other. Still, around 7:10 pm, Frank was starting to feel kind of caged in.

 

“Why don’t you go outside and take a breather for a minute,” Mikey suggested in whisper after Frank knocked over his cup of water for the second time that evening. “I’ll keep Ryan company if you need a second.”

 

Frank had been hesitant, but Ryan seemed comfortable enough, so he agreed. He snuck out the sliding doors in the kitchen, escaping quietly to the back patio, where it was cold as hell and dark, but also quiet.

 

He was just sliding a cigarette out of the carton he’d hid in his jacket pocket in case of emergencies when the doors opened again and Gerard stepped out into the night air. “There you are,” he said. “I was worried you went home.”

 

Frank put the cigarette to his mouth and lit it, cupping his hand around the dollar-store flame to protect it from the wind. “I wouldn’t leave Ryan here by himself with Donna.”

 

Gerard laughed softly, maybe nervously, Frank thought. “Fair enough,” he said. He sat down beside Frank on the bottom step.

 

The silence between them was so very _almost_ \- almost comfortable, almost unbearable, almost tangible. Frank took the first drag of smoke and let it fill in all the cracked and empty spaces in his chest.

 

“I have to ask, because I’m curious, but you don’t have to answer,” Gerard almost whispered in the darkness, the artificial light from the kitchen spilling over the back of his head and then his face as he turned to look at Frank. “How much longer are you going to be mad at me?” Frank watched him carefully, hidden behind the air of aloofness that came with his cigarette. Half of Gerard’s face was shrouded in darkness, the other tinted yellow by unflattering light, and he somehow managed to still look as soft as anything. “Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want you to rush into the whole not-mad-at-me thing, but I still wonder how much longer it’ll take for you to forgive me so that we can be friends again.”

 

The shadow almost caressed Gerard’s face. He was pretty even in the dark, even in the cold, even when Frank didn’t want to notice how pretty he was. And, as always, his eyes held that never ending softness. Why was he always so damn soft? He was like a blanket, like a cloud, like cotton candy, and somehow like none of those things at the same time. He was Gerard. He was like nothing else.

 

“I’m not mad at you, Gee,” Frank told him, and he found that it was true despite how much he would have loved to convince himself otherwise. He’d even used the old nickname; it had just rolled off his tongue, making his voice delicate in ways he hadn’t intended it to be. “I’m just bitter. I promise, that has more to do with me than it does with you.”

 

Gerard didn’t seem surprised by Frank’s admission, even though it had seemed like something important as it came out of his mouth. If anything, he just looked sad. “Why are you bitter, then?”

 

Frank wanted to tell him. He wanted to say, _You were everything, and I was nothing. I loved you, and you didn’t love me back, and even though that isn’t your fault, I can’t forgive you until I let it go. I don’t know how long that will take. I’m sorry._ Instead, he glanced behind him to the party, to where Ryan and Mikey were sitting somewhere, smiling. He studied Gerard, who would apologize for something he didn’t even consciously do, and then promise to make it up to Frank, who would be ungrateful no matter what, just like that last time. Then, he smiled, the sharp bitter-sweetness of it digging into the flesh of his cheeks like knife blades, and said, “That’s not a story for today.”

 

The elder Way brother stared out into the yard, which was only barely visible in the dull light coming from the windows of the house behind them, and sighed, defeated. “When you say ‘not today’, do you mean ‘not ever’?"

 

Frank didn’t know how to answer that, so he took another drag from his cigarette in lieu of a response.

 

“You know I worry about you, right?” he asked. He didn’t pause for an answer. “I worry because I care, and you give me a lot to worry about. I mean, I was looking at your self portrait, and listen, it’s really good, but it’s so fucking _dark_ , Frank. You did an oil painting of yourself as a ghost in a dilapidated cemetery, and while I give you kudos for creativity and execution, it’s just so fucking morbid. You could have made yourself anything, and you made yourself _dead_.” He scrubbed a hand over his eyes and into his hair, which was tangled beyond saving. “I know you don’t want to talk to me, but is there anyone else you can talk to? Your mom? Mikey? Ryan, maybe?”

 

Frank laughed, but the sound was as sharp and unhappy as the knives in his cheeks. “I don’t want to weigh anyone down with my bitching.”

 

“It’s not just bitching if you have an actual issue.”

 

“I don’t have any issues. I’m fine.”

 

Gerard didn’t look convinced. In fact, he looked a little sick to his stomach. Still, he didn’t push it.

 

“I just worry about you,” he repeated quietly. “You used to smile all the time, but you don’t anymore. Not really, and not often. I don’t know what to do, Frank.”

 

“You don’t have to do anything.”

 

His voice was almost pleading, his eyes big and soothing, like hot tea on a sore throat. “I want to.”

 

Frank stubbed out his cigarette in the grass, a perfect excuse to look away. “You’re a sweet guy,” he said, staring at the where the cherry wasn’t entirely out yet. “Almost makes me wish I wasn’t such a bitter bitch.”

 

The sound of the wind on the grass was all that broke up the silence between them for several seconds.

 

“Tonight was perfect,” Gerard said, his voice low and trance-like. “It was like everything that I’ve been looking for since I got back. We laughed, we ate, we choked on food because we were laughing, cramped around the same piece of shit table that we’ve been cramped around since we were kids.” Gerard’s shadow-coated fingers turned the ring on his thumb against the skin there. “I just want that feeling of fitting in, you know? And I can’t believe I messed everything up so badly in the first place.”

 

Frank felt like shit. Gerard was sweet in an overwhelming way, but he was undeniably sweet. Dangerously, annoyingly, perfectly sweet. And then there was Frank, too stubborn to give up a grudge for something that had nothing to do with him in the first place. Gerard drove him home from school even though it was out of the way and bought him coffee. Gerard put up with his bullshit and worried about him and wanted him to smile. He was too good - for the world, and definitely for Frank - and Frank felt like he was ten years old again, unblinkingly, unflinchingly, and unwittingly trapped in a love for a dreamer who would never notice.

 

Frank was a piece of shit. He was bitchy, and people gave him too much credit when he decided to be nice. He was just a person. Gerard was somehow more than that.

 

It fucking sucked.

 

He hated it. He hated loving that dumb, stupid, wonderful piece of shit. Especially, he hated himself for hurting him.

 

He needed to be honest. No, he needed to be  _brash_. He needed to do something or he was going to lose his fucking mind, but sitting there, looking at Gerard, he could think of nothing. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to do.

 

Frank decided to stop thinking and let the universe decide for him.

 

For a moment so brief it could not be recorded by human measurement, Frank let go and embraced all of it - all the pain, all the fear, and the love that wouldn't just fucking _leave him alone_. He turned to Gerard so abruptly that the elder Way brother jumped a little in surprise, held his face steady with one hand, and planted a ghost of a kiss on his temple. “Just give me some time,” he said into Gerard’s incredibly greasy hair that somehow still smelled kind of nice. “I’ll come around eventually.”

 

Then, standing from the steps and moving towards the door that would lead him back into the kitchen and away from whatever the fuck kind of misguided attempt at comfort that was - man fuck the universe, what the _actual fuck_ did he just do - he pushed the feelings down into the bottom of his spine, the back of his mind, threw them out the trash shoot on the back of his head. They had been there once, but they no longer existed. Gerard was just a person. So was he.

 

“Come on,” he said, forcing his voice into nonchalance. “We’re missing the party.”

 

Gerard looked shaken up, like he could have conceivably seen a ghost or a unicorn or something else that shouldn’t rightfully exist. He stood and followed behind Frank without a word.

 

That was good. Silence had healing properties, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still a slut or comments and kudos.
> 
> Give them to me.
> 
> GIVE ME THE CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM, YOU COWARDS.


End file.
